


Moonage Daydream

by welcometocabeswater



Series: Moonage Series [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Asexuality, Banter, Brooding, Cabeswater - Freeform, Child Abuse, Dance parties, Depression, Dubious Consent, F/M, Graphic Violence, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, NSFW, OT5, Other, Sex, aromatic, blended families - Freeform, domestic abuse, dream things, gender fluidity, gender queer characters, loud fashion choices, next generation raven cycle, pansexuality, pre-TRK canon, sarcastic teens, written before The Raven King's release
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-24 14:00:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 42
Words: 129,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4922272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welcometocabeswater/pseuds/welcometocabeswater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When her father dreamt her up, Violet Lynch was born with Adam Parrish’s elegant hands. All her life, she's lived under the heavy strain of being an unearthly thing when all she's ever wanted was to be a normal teenage girl. Her best friends, Sargent Gansey and Indie Sargent help her get that much closer...</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Adam watches Ronan fall into a downward spiral he can't escape. Their marriage hangs in the balance, threatening the harmony between The Barns and Monmouth Manufacturing that keeps Violet, Sargent, and Indie happy and stable...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <b>Please note this was written prior to The Raven King's publication and therefore features many aspects that even I would agree would never happen now knowing how the entire series ends. So just sit back and enjoy the AU ride!</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Freckled Hands

**Author's Note:**

> All respect goes to Maggie Stiefvater, whose original raven kids are hers. The latest generation are mine. Title goes to David Bowie for his song of the same name.
> 
> I warn you all: this is not a happy story. I promised a happy ending before I realized how bad things were going to get in terms of plot development, so I'm stuck with that promise toward the bitter end. But in the meantime, this plot is Angst Central. 
> 
> Please take heed of the dubious consent tag above. I'm not altogether comfortable with checking the rape/non-con box above should it chase anyone off, but I do want to make sure no one reads Chapter 14 and feels triggered. I can promise all explorations of domestic abuse in this fic are done with great thought and care and I've been sure to consider the repercussions of writing a scene of dubious consent or domestic violence. If I didn't think it was important to the plot, I wouldn't write it. So I'm here to say I'm not writing these scenes to shock, more to shed light on a miserable situation.

When her father dreamt her up, Violet Lynch was born with Adam Parrish’s elegant hands. When it came to genetics, Violet thought of the normal things parents passed down to their children: sharp, cutting chin (Ronan’s),  fine, dusty blond curls (Adam’s, although undeniably Lynch in nature), or bluer than blue eyes (Ronan’s), yet the one thing people commented on again and again were her hands. They were legend among her extended family of The Barns, 300 Fox Way, and Monmouth Manufacturing. Her godmother, Blue, often took those long slender fingers up her in own, and lovingly spoke of how very close a match they were to her father’s. Not her hair, or her eyes, or jutting chin. Her hands. Always her hands.

Ronan Lynch was always subtly proud of his craftsmanship. He would always say his daughter was his greatest masterpiece as he raised a glass and smiled with that lethal mouth of his (a mouth they also happened to share). Sometimes Violet wished she didn’t have to live up to her epic mythical origins.

But few could boast being the perfect genetic combination of their two dads… Violet wasn’t sure it was a worthy burden to bear, being this perfect, inhuman thing. What was she but this beautiful work of art, held on a lofty pedestal for frivolous gawkers to admire from afar? She and her fair, freckled hands…

She presses her cheek to her folded arms, stacked in the most deliberately placed display of languor only a Lynch family member could achieve. Her fingers reach idly to stroke a clawed foot of one of the few creatures that understand her. Her father’s pet raven had been a constant companion since her inception. They two know what it means to be a dream creation, they and about half her living blood relations.

Chainsaw doesn’t care a whit about her beautiful hands. To the bird, they are but vestibules for food and shiny gifts to be stowed away. They are no less magical than the sleek, dark feathers off the raven’s back. They simply _are_.

Sometimes, Violet forgets she’s made of extraordinary magical parts, and simply lives as an ordinary girl with an ordinary life. But the instant she finds herself shoulder to shoulder with her dreamer’s kin, all are painfully aware of how ethereal she truly is. Her grandmother, Aurora, always truly incandescent in her rustic beauty, and her uncle Matthew, an angel incarnate. Heaven lays at their feet and Violet knows naught how to live up to such lofty expectations.

“Kerah!” Chainsaw caws her sympathies, her own version of _I know_ as she nips at her sister dream’s knuckles. Sometimes girls have to stick together…

The broody feminine silence splinters as Sargent Gansey plunks down on the seat next to her at the kitchen table, as carefree and unencumbered as you like. “How’s the existential crisis coming along?” he needles her, a lot less gently than he should. He’s all long limbs and no tact, taking up as much space as he possibly can, no thanks to his latest growth spurt and a desperate need to inform the entire room that _he’s here._

Violet lets out a decidedly unlady-like grunt in response, tracing a ring in the wood under her fingertips. Unlike Violet, Sargent happily plays the part of _larger than life_. Sometimes she wonders whether they were mixed up at birth; that Sargent was the true dream child. But he’s just another Richard Campbell Gansey duplicate, commanding attention like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather before him. Nothing dream-like about him, save for the impossible amount of space he takes up in Violet’s mind and heart.

But that’s an emotion to brood over for another day…

He swings his leg around the chair, swiveling the furniture piece until he’s straddling it, arms draped keenly over its high back. He watches her intently, waiting to pounce. If Violet’s elegant and broody, Sargent’s frenetic and awkward, the perfect polar opposites.

“Violet,” he starts his valiant campaign to pull her out of her latest reverie.  “Heyyyy Viiiiolet… you know what’s fun? _Living_.”

She turns her head in the box of her arms, contemplating the effort it would take to hit him. “You know, if my father died, that’d be it for me. Comatose. For the rest of my life,” she says instead, utterly unfiltered, hoping her latest morbid statement might scare him away.

Sargent raises a brow, only mildly perturbed. He knows her better than that. “Aww come on, Vi. Your grandma’s fine, isn’t she? We found a loophole. If you went down, I’d wake you up.”

“How do I know I’m not asleep right now?” she prods, more to push his buttons than anything else. One more thing she’s inherited from Ronan Lynch: a sharp tongue full of barbed thorns, prepared to inflict pain sooner than offering relief. She doesn’t know what it means to be civil.

Sargent reaches out a long, boyish arm to pinch her, just below her right shoulder. She startles in spite of herself. “See? Wide awake.”

“You haunt my dreams, Sarge,” she murmurs, sardonic, finally sitting up in her chair and tucking her arms close against her chest. Still indignant.

“All good dreams, I hope,” he replies cheerily. Violet leers at him. He has no idea…

At night, she dreams of meadows, beneath pink and lavender skies. And he’s there, always there, so close, yet somehow, so far away. She’s glad she could never be like her father in her dreamings. What she’d bring back would bring a rising heat to her cheeks difficult to bear in her waking state.

He’s practically her cousin. They grew up together, split their time between three different homes and two different sets of parents. What she wants she can’t possibly have…

She dreams of him like a star, bright and luminescent, a light guiding her home: second star to the right and straight on til morning. He’s always the brightest thing in her dreary world, the sun shining through the outcropping of labyrinth in her mind. His smile is blinding, all straight, white teeth and precious dimples made for a fabled prince. He’s elegant in his own clumsy way.

Violet can’t fly too close to the sun. This is how she’ll burn up.

“You know, self-pity is catching,” Sargent observes nonsensically. He talks like his father out of sheer habit, although he has yet to grow into his lofty words.

“Watch out for hives,” she bites back, tucking an errant curl behind her ear. He’s watching her still; watching her hands and his gaze sends a cold thrill through her. She wishes another piece of her was the object of his attentions; _any other_ piece of her.

She stretches out her long legs in front of her. Her heavy combat lace-ups scrape the floor, one shoe come undone. A wide, purple bruise peeks out from beneath a puffy magenta skirt, just below her knee from where she scraped it climbing a tree with Sargent’s sister. She’s littered with scrapes and bruises, from full-contact sports; from aggressively enthusiastic explorations of woods and farmland; from fist-fights with boys on the playground. She hears she gets that from her father too.

For once in her life, she’d like to get something from herself, simply for being Violet, and not from being a dream thing.

She’s not soft; none of them are, not even the Gansey-Sargent siblings, who are sickly sweet at the best of times, wrapping around your little finger and tugging at your heartstrings until you’ve come undone utterly at their feet. That’s their secret weapon. Violet wraps around middle fingers and tugs brutally until you have no choice but to fight. Her sweetness is combatant, tucked away and impossible to find unless you forget to look and Violet forgets to hide.

“God, you’re so like your father,” Gansey Senior sighs with a shake of his head whenever she blindsides him with her savage indifference. He says it in a way that suggests he’s really saying _why can’t you be more like your other progenitor? The less dangerous one?_

 _Why can’t I be more like myself?_ Violet ponders in response. Who is Violet Lynch beneath her father’s fervent wishes? She wishes she knew…

Beside her, Sargent looks like the 80s rolled into town, had a raucous party, and threw up its boozy contents all over him. His neon pink tee beneath an open denim vest  coupled with faded grey skinny jeans battered in the knees with grass stains and holes are both casually laid back and seizure-inducing. A bright orange sew-on patch stares back at her from the breast pocket of his vest. Violet wishes his hair wasn’t such a crafty mess. She wishes he wasn’t so languorously handsome in his stupid, vibrant clothes.

Although they’ve exchanged few words today, he’s loud loud loud in his proximity. She’s exhausted just looking at him. Most of all, she can’t stand how ridiculously Sargent he is. He may be another Richard Campbell Gansey duplicate, but he’s comfortably himself all the same. He doesn’t even have to _try_ being someone else. He simply is by virtue of being Sargent Gansey.

The envy bubbles up inside her before she can stop it. She wants him to leave; she wants him to stay and hold her hand and tell her that it’s alright. That she _is_ her own person by virtue of being Violet Lynch. But she doesn’t know how to ask nicely without kicking him in the shins.

Fortunately enough, Violet’s contemplations are cut short when the kitchen door slides open to reveal the smallest member of their trio. Indie Sargent strides in, fresh from the garage, smattered in grease. Violet wrinkles her nose. For Indie’s fifteenth birthday, her mother made her a jumpsuit specifically for fixing cars. It’s an amalgamation of different colours and patterns and gives Violet a headache just looking at it. Sprawling trees spread wide in gold embroidery throughout the pattern from her chest, right down to her ankles. Indie looks far too cheerful this early in the morning.

If Sargent is the prince, Indie’s the princess, without a doubt in the world. They could be twins, the familial resemblance is so real. Her hair is swept up in two artfully messy buns on either side of her head, leaving blunt bangs and two longer strands to frame her face. It’s a vibrant teal blue from when the ladies of 300 Fox Way took to it with all-natural dyes from Blue’s shop beneath Monmouth Manufacturing. She’s a far more willing guinea pig than Violet, who would flip anyone over a table if anyone so much as touched her.

She pops a bubble by way of greeting, a pint-sized bubble gum princess. She’s got a fine streak of oil across her nose and over her forehead where she undoubtedly wiped sweat with the back of her hand.

“Oh, look. The Candyland Twins are here,” Violet can’t help the sarcastic greeting if she tried.

“Could you stop being your father’s daughter for three seconds?” Indie bites back, knowing exactly how to hit where it hurts. Violet sneers back, although the energy to fight is lost on her this morning.

“How’s the Pig?” she asks instead by way of reparation.

Indie lights up, all bouncy on her mint green converse-clad heels. “ _So_ great! Adam really thinks we’ll be able to restore it in time for Dad’s birthday!”

For the past few months, she and Violet’s father had made it their mission to restore a Camaro as a gift for Richard Cambell Gansey III, as a fond memorial to the blazing orange car he drove as a teen. It had died a noble death long before even Sargent was born, but it was high time the Pig 2.0 rose from the ashes under Adam Lynch and Indie Sargent’s careful hands.

If anyone deserved elegant hands, it would be Indie. At least she’d be putting them to good use…

Violet’s covered hers with dark fingerless mesh gloves, cutting off at the elbow. The less people have to see, the less they’re likely to comment. “Nothing quite says over the hill like new wheels…”

“He’ll love it,” Sargent agrees, beaming back at his sister in a fond way that suggests he’s five seconds away from getting up and ruffling her hair. The pair of them are cotton candy cavity inducing grins for an extended moment. Violet’s wildly uncomfortable under all this happy.

“Do us a favour and don’t remind him of the big 4-0,” Sargent amends. “He’s freaking out enough as it is.”

“Mortality looms,” Indie adds, her vowels elongated, raising wriggly fingers in an attempt to be ominous.

“Third time’s a charm.” Violet shrugs, sliding off her chair and gathering up her long-since neglected breakfast dishes. Death is a touchy subject in the Gansey household, far different from the blunt discussions that frequent the Lynch dinner table. Richard Campbell Gansey III has already died twice. The next time he dies, it’s likely to stick, a forever thing.

“Don’t be morbid,” Sargent warns, while Indie stares back at her, glassy-eyed.

“Morbid’s my middle name. Can’t be helped.” Violet puts her bowl and mug in the sink.

Indie’s eyes narrow. “Your middle name is Aurora though.”

Violet rolls her eyes. “Don’t be a dick about it. A joke is a joke is a joke.”

“Ha ha.” Sargent humours her, utterly humourlessly.

It’s about time the gang escaped into the world on this fine Saturday morning. Violet knows if they linger, the yawning chasm of her bitterness would swallow her whole. She needs to go out and _do_ something before she says something she _really_ can’t take back.

One of these days, she’s going to saw two of the best people in her life in half with the sharp edge of her unpleasant company, a gruesome magic trick of her very own. And then where would she be?

Alone with her thoughts again, wondering who in the hell she’s meant to be without them.


	2. Dusty Curls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan and Violet share a penchant for talking with their fists...

Ronan Lynch’s parenting skills were nothing if not unorthodox. Becoming a father in the few hours it took to fall into sleep’s clever clutches tended to strike any normal parenting technique null and void. His own mind played tricks on him, summoning up a child out of thin air- the most stunning magic trick he’d ever conjured.

Only in his wildest dreams…

His wildest dream stands primed to strike, legs bent low in a near-crouch, fists in the air. She’s a lethal weapon all on her own. The punching bag hung from the low beams of the cellar ceiling doesn’t stand a chance.

She breathes in time with her punches, a swift but calculated one two one two one two. Sweat-streaked tendrils fall across her forehead from where Violet hastily brushed them back in a half-ponytail. Her curls are too short to pull up in one tidy resolution to petty problems. But his daughter isn’t the tidy sort, and never will be.

The tick in her forehead suggests she’s working through something she’ll never put to words. Not for him anyway. Violet seems to be in a constant state of working through something lately. That makes the pair of them…

The training room came about as an answer to their shared whirlwind tornado of aggression. Violet and Ronan co-exist in this room, pouring out everything they can’t say through their fists.

She’s elegant when she fights, long dancer’s legs still throwing Irish high kicks on strict autopilot. Every move is a calculated dance with Violet, like her body speaks for her, a language all on its own. This is a careful choreography every time, set to screeching guitar and thudding bass, ripping straight through the walls and shaking the foundations of the house above them. It’s a heart pounding beat and it claws, predatory.

Ronan knows well what it means to be bred with sharp edges. His careful imagination didn’t take the time to smooth out the jagged corners when it split itself in two to create its own twin. He looks at her, his screaming hell cat; his striking viper on a war path, and he suspects he’s been far too greedy in creating her in his own image. What a selfish god he’s been…

He sets foot into the lion’s den, always the greatest risk if he wants to keep all four limbs in tact. Hands reach out to still the bag. It bounces on its chain for a moment, swaying ever so, then stills. The dip in Violet’s brow deepens at the shift, annoyed that anyone would disrupt her workout. But it takes mere seconds before she recognizes Ronan, solemn from behind the big, red cylindrical sack. She nods once, a sharp up down tip of her jutting chin, welcoming her opponent into the ring.

Ronan nods back and circles her, bare feet hitting the mat for the first time. They spar, knees bent, fists up, rounding on each other like wild dogs competing for a meal. An immense guitar rift electrifies the room and Ronan’s heart skips with it. Violet’s breath is heavy as she blocks a punch again and again and again. There are no words, no banter between them over the rumbling bass, nor around Violet’s lemon yellow mouth guard.

Her dance kicks back up again, majestic as a swan, a perfectly coordinated whirl of arms and legs. Even around her mouth guard, Ronan can see she’s grinning, that spitting cobra smile she inherited from him. He grins back, shark-like. Any other prey would be dead in the water by now.

Not Violet.

Her body twists, a complicated pull of muscles and sinew and before Ronan can comprehend it, he’s thrown, right over his sixteen year old daughter’s shoulder, a flopping rag-doll onto the waiting mat. His forehead makes contact with a resounding thud. Violet rips her mouth guard out from between her teeth in an instant. The music grinds to a halt as if sensing the change in mood.

“ _Daddy_ …” for a rare moment, her mouth is a little girl’s pout, pretty and repentant as she rushes to him.

“You’re getting better,” he remarks, the heel of his palm pressing up against his pounding temple. She’s already reaching out a hand to help him up but Ronan Lynch doesn’t give in without a fight. He accepts her offering… and drags her down with him. She relents with an open laugh, coming down easy into his waiting arms.

They sway once on the spot before she’s fussing over him. “Did I hurt you? Let me see.” She pulls Ronan’s hand away from his head with the faintest gasp. “Daddy, you’re bleeding…”

He lets out an acknowledging grunt and waves the thought away. “I’ll be fine.” His head’s already swimming, but he’ll wait it out this once if it means keeping her for one more still moment.

She fusses over him some more, ever the indulgent nurse, before falling back on her heels. Nothing more to be done about it now… A self-satisfied grin splays across her face, unbidden. It’s the first smile left unchecked he’s seen in her for weeks. “You should be fucking pleased. That was a good move.”

Her hands clap together, utterly un-Violet of her. The little girl she once was tugs at Ronan’s heartstrings. The room becomes instantly smaller as his lung capacity shrinks. He wants to press her hands in his and hold her here, memorize that unencumbered look on her face for the next time a frown envelopes her mouth once more. It won’t be long now…

Three…

Two…

One…

She’s back up on her feet, tucking that stray curl behind her ear. Ronan wonders if she knows she’s bouncing on her heels, giddy with her triumph. “Oh my god, I have to show Sargent.”

She whirls on the spot in one pivoting whirl, hands in her hair, head thrown back. Not a care in the world.

“Yeah, you go throw him over the mattress,” Ronan agrees, enlivened by his daughter’s glee.

She whirls back around, an oddly stricken expression on her face. Her whole body tenses, coiled back into herself. “W-what?” And there it is.

Ronan coughs, realizing his gaff while Violet’s cheeks flood with colour. “Go show him who’s boss,” he amends, kicking himself. Absolutely kicking himself.

“Oh, right, yeah.” She eases up some, but the blush remains, a keen indication for those things she leaves unsaid, but Ronan can read loud and clear. He knows what it means to pine over someone you can’t quite have… She forces out a quick, sharp laugh, like she’s suddenly remembered something foolish. “I can’t do _that_ … He’s got brittle bones.”

Ronan barks out a laugh- a true, honest to god laugh. There’s his daughter’s biting wit. “Then better stick to picking on Indie then.”

“I think there’s a saying about picking on someone smaller than you,” Violet shoots back. Quick as a whip.

“That saying has never met Blue Sargent and her tiny tiny hell spawn.”

“She _is_ a tiny tiny hell spawn,” Violet concedes. “I should kick her ass…”

“Go bury your friends.” Ronan gives his fullest, heartiest permission with a dip of his head.

Her mouth does a complicated thing like it wants to smile, but changes its mind halfway. “Are you sure you’re ok?”

Ronan bats another dismissive hand. “Fuckin’ peaches and cream, love.” _Don’t worry about me_ , he silently begs. _Don’t you dare worry._ But she’s still looking at him as if his troubles are written all over his face and she’s seeing more than just his physical pains. They two are so full of unanswered hurts- it’s a shame neither of them are much for talking.

Her frown lifts for his benefit alone. “Ok.” She’ll leave him be for now, and they’ll each carry on pretending neither of them are top full of lies ready to spill over the brim.

She swoops down on him, an array of curls tickling his brow as she bestows a quick kiss to his temple where it hurts the most. He forces a smile, his heart already sinking as he watches her go.

She’s incendiary, this eternal flame of a girl, certain to burn them all to the ground, leaving nothing but dust and ashes in her wake. An infernal wasteland. Violet Lynch will be the destruction of the Earth. And Ronan created her.

_Are you happy, Violet?_ He ponders, now utterly alone with his wicked, wicked thoughts. _Are you happy here, with me? With this family we’ve forged for you?_

Sometimes he wonders if she would’ve been happier back in his dreams, where nothing could get to her, and she could simply be, this abstract lovely thing. There would be no broody gazing off into the horizon, waiting for answers to come to her. There would be no scraped knees or angry tears. There would be no Violet, just this unnamed girl and this desperate desire to keep her burning beneath his skin.

One day, someone’s going to fall in love with her. One day, she’ll break his heart. The black widow venom is strong in her; she’ll tear him to pieces soon enough.

One day, she’ll leave here, a woman, with her long legs and beautiful fair hands, her dusty curls and fiery heart. And she won’t turn back once she goes.

He remembers when she was small enough to fit in his lap, warm and safe, and trusting. She’s grown since then, into this extraordinary waspish creature, ready to take a bite out of the world.

Sometimes, Ronan wishes for another mistake. Pulling out a little Violet duplicate and starting from scratch with that same baby girl, given a different name. Maybe he’d call her Rose and she’d be softer around the edges than her prototype. Maybe he’d spend the rest of his life dreaming up his precious little seedling again and again, wishing for one second, she’d stop blooming into this exquisite, thriving blossom and stay. _Right there_. He could stop time right in its tracks if he wanted. All he’d have to do is dream.

In all his long years of fatherhood, Ronan Lynch is beginning to understand, it’s _his_ heart she’ll be breaking.

He stretches his legs out in front of him, leaning back on his hands. The clock on the wall of the dimly lit room reads four thirty. His daughter has long since whooshed out the door by now, in search for her ever-present companions. And his husband won’t be home from the office for another two hours. If he comes home at all…

One day, every person Ronan loves will leave him. Tonight, he will toast to that with the stiffest of drinks and loneliest of hearts, his empty future stretched out before him, miles beyond the eye can see.

 

 


	3. Burning Gaze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam returns home to a quiet house where his daughter's greeting is far more enthusiastic than his husband's...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stand by for extreme angst... 
> 
> (note, I'm uploading from my ipad and I can't fix up all the italics as easily as I would have from my computer... chances are if there's an awkward sentence, it's meant to be italicized...)

Adam closes the heavy sliding door to The Barns as quietly as possible. Midnight is not a time to call it quits on a Saturday night. He's missed another night expressly dedicated to Ronan, Gansey, Blue, Noah, and the kids; dedicated to their unorthodox family of eight. Their _family_. _His_ family. They only get this once or twice a week when all the adults have work keeping them from casual hangouts long into the night as they had once done at Violet, Sargent, and Indie's age. But Adam's not the only culprit here. Gansey is equally to blame, with papers of scholarly genius or otherwise stacked miles high on his office desk. Ever the illustrious academic, Gansey shows no sign of slowing down, not even with upwards of one hundred students under his belt at any time. (Even Blue suggests teaching three classes at once is beyond his overstretching reach.)

Adam falls victim to the same workaholic effigy and no one resents it more than Ronan. His sullen husband is nowhere to be seen in the immediate vicinity of the sitting room and kitchen. Which means he's gone back to Monmouth and taken the kids with him, disappeared into the abyss, taking a speeding car with him, or, the most unlikely option yet- he's already abed, taking a furiously working subconscious with him as his ever-nightly companion.

Adam loosens his tie, slipping his suit jacket off and hooking it onto the clawed coat rack by the door without paying it any further mind. All is silent but for a distant giggling effused from down the hall, an instant giveaway for the Gansey-Sargent sibling's eternal presence in the house. Some nights, Indie's tinkling laugh and Sargent's grand outbursts cling to The Barns, lingering in the musty farmyard wind long after they've left for their second home. Adam wonders if the ghost of him haunts these halls in his absence too. Or does the old barn even know him? Has it ever truly known him as a unified entity with the family that built it? Or is he an intruder, destined to be cast out one day?

He can't afford to think that way. He's just as much a Lynch as the rest of them- his marriage certificate says so.

He slides his polished black shoes off, tucking them carefully into their rightful place in the closet beneath the wooden slatted shelf that sits ankle height: a gift Ronan made with his own hands back when he was still fastidious enough to notice when Adam needed a bit more order in his life... Whatever order the shoes take has long been lost to piles of mismatched sneakers. Adam's carefully constructed control over his life has slipped, completely unnoticed. 

His socks are mismatched from his frantic morning of sifting through the impossible mountain of mismatched, unsorted laundry: one bright orange, the other, a red, blue, and green argyle. They slide across the hardwood floors as he makes his tired, meandering way down the hall, following the siren's call of teens up too late.

At least someone will be here to greet him...

He knocks at the third door on the left. An impeccably Sargent-like guffaw sounds out, far too loud for the midnight hour, before his daughter's scandalized voice rings out, "Sargent!" and she meets him at the door.

"Daddy!" Violet exclaims, arms flung out to receive him, wide awake and beaming. "You're home!" Adam notes the surprise in her voice and tucks it away for future contemplation. Is he really such a stranger in his daughter's long days full of brooding whimsey? 

She flings herself into his arms, not such a stranger after all, but she squeezes him like a long-lost friend anyhow. Her companions are just as pleased to see him, beaming from the bedroom floor. The trundle bed is tucked away under the double-decker bunk bed for now to accommodate some sort of illustrious map which brings Adam vivid flashbacks to Monmouth Manufacturing, back in the Glendower-chasing days of old. 

"Please tell me you're not planning some elaborate quest to raise the dead," Adam sighs, woebegone at the all-too-familiar sight. "Because I don't think I could handle that this late in the evening."

Sargent guffaws, an unnecessarily urgent "ha!," an extra special Dick van Dyke on center stage laugh. "Relax, old man. It's just geography homework."

Violet watches him with an oddly inexplainable expression on her face. This too strikes Adam far too close to home. The burning in her gaze as she smirks back at Sargent Gansey deposits rocks to settle heavy in his stomach for each day Ronan used to look at him like that. How long has it been?

"Think we could summon some ghosts?" Indie's precious little voice pipes up from beside her brother, innocent as anything. She blinks, unassuming up at the pair of Lynches looming above her; she looks far too small from this angle, and shrinking ever still from her position, knees curled up against her chest. 

"Isn't it past Noah's bedtime?" Violet deadpans, expression now flicked to neutral. That lazy, lopsided smile is all for Sargent then...

"Isn't it past mine?" Adam enquires before the three of them start shooting off their usual quick fire banter and he's lost them completely.

Violet's expression softens, melted treacle, something just for him. She wraps those long, elegant arms around him sidelong, her brow dropping to his shoulder. "I'm sorry you're tired, Daddy. Go get some rest."

Adam smiles wistfully down at her, an awkward angle with the twist of his neck. He drops a kiss to her temple as she looks up at him with those blue blue blue eyes, blind with trust for this man who undoubtedly influences her life the least. There is no end of love in the vast expanse of that stormy sea. Lately, Adam's more willing to drown in those depths than the ones they sprang from. 

But drown he must once he faces the cold wraith that has lately become his dear, loving husband, Ronan Lynch.

He finds Ronan sequestered in the games room, once filled with the frenetic energy fit for a trio of brothers, not unlike the triad tucked away, safe in Violet's bedroom now. Now, it houses Niall Lynch's eternally well-stocked bar, lined against the far corner of the room, all ornate cherrywood and gleaming, long necked bottles of all manners of liquor one could possibly dream up. 

In the stark light of day, Adam regrets keeping it here, such easy access to the one drinker of the house. One so full of demons should not have such a devilish healer to cauterize his wounds. He should have done away with the bottles upon bottles of sloshing liquid long ago, with the rest of the barb-wired traps back when he and Ronan baby proofed The Barns. Ronan never had been thorough when he vowed to rid himself of the drink when thoughts of their infant daughter's untimely demise haunted his dreams.

Adam kept it in tact for petty reasons. On select Friday evenings, when the children were forehead kissed and tucked into beds, he savoured the moments where he and Gansey sat slumped in cushy overstuffed chairs while Ronan poured fine fingers of whisky for them each. He always admired the bulge of Ronan's uncovered biceps as he tipped the crystal over glass, as if he were putting on a scintillating show, just for him. Their secret, right under everyone's noses. 

Adam liked the masculine camaraderie that spoke of days long past, back before the kids; back before Blue, where it was just they three, and Noah, on the occasions he made his presence known. The three kings of Monmouth, young, foolish, full of potential, and full of a deep affinity and respect for one another.

A good scotch gets better with age. Their mutual respect had not. Time dwindled their days away; whittling away their esteem. Gansey, ever the instigator and mother hen of the group, kept their scattering pieces cohesive. It was Gansey who suggested merging their families, to make certain they never missed one another, ever again. He wanted to keep them all close, never let their love for one another die.

Did he know back then, that Adam would stray? Did he know back then that Ronan's nights would fill with alcohol and remorse instead of a husband and a warm bed to be welcomed into? Does he know now they are falling apart?

Ronan snores gently from his place in the middle of the couch, knees spread wide, and head tipped back. Adam's heart descends to his toes as he wrestles the snifter carefully from Ronan's clenched fist gone slack in his dreaming. The glass is woefully empty, save for a fine amber ring circling its otherwise clear bottom. Adam's wedding band clinks against the crystal, a damned near match for the miserable truth told at the bottom of the crystalline well.

He sets the tumbler down quietly on the coffee table and settles on the couch beside his wayward husband. "God, Ronan," he whispers, temple fallen into his hand as he props an elbow against the back of the couch, a mere inch from Ronan's right ear. "What are we doing?" His fingers reach out to brush knuckles, backhanded, soft soft soft, down over his temple, across his cheek. "What are you doing?"

He's so painstakingly beautiful, even now, in his alcohol-induced slumber. Adam hates the pang, tightening in his chest that threatens to crawl out of him with every ugly word that festers there. His knuckles hang there, suspended in their tentative stroking of those cheekbones, razor sharp beneath his skin. "I love you," Adam admits. It shouldn't be so hard to say, when he's been married to this man; dedicated his whole life to him, for better or for worse, til death do they part, for the past twenty years now. He doesn't remember when last he said it, heart's blood spilt, as easy as a quick nick to the jugular. This- this is a slow and painful death, and he's dying still as he watches Ronan unconsciously undo himself; undo everything they've ever had together. 

"God, Ronan Lynch," he repeats, with more force, his heart swallowing up his throat like a choking vice. "I love you so much. Please. Please stop doing this to yourself. You are so loved, Ronan. God... I love you. Violet loves you. And Gansey and Blue and Noah... and the kids, and Matthew and your mom... Even Declan, though he's loathe to admit it... We all love you, Ronan. Why can't you just see what's right in front of you? Why do you keep pushing us away?" 

He hangs there, in this infinite moment, as if waiting for Ronan to answer his desperate pleas. But in sleep, Ronan has no words, and this is the most earnest Adam's been since the poison began to corrupt Ronan's bloodstream, a gradual trickle: maybe a few months, maybe a few years' doing... Adam doesn't know how long he's let this draw on, willing to chock it up to Ronan's penchant for the occasional drink.

However long it's been, it's been long enough. He has to put an end to it. Soon.

With a weary sigh, he stands to leave. His bed beckons him, all cold, crisp sheets, and tragically empty. He's halfway out the door when a sound shatters the heavy, somnambulant silence. 

"Don't leave." From his slumped position on the couch, the two words slip out Ronan easier than breathing. Unbelievably, he too, clings desperately to everything they once had, his eyes still closed in semi-slumber, lashes casting shadows along sharp cheekbones. 

Adam can hardly stand it- this heady tension between them, broken only by subconscious words, ripped from them cleanly, and accidentally, like a hypnotist's trick. An old, rainbow afghan splays across the back of the couch, a gift Ronan's mother lovingly stitched to celebrate their nuptials and easier times. He snatches a soft corner up now, and pulls it around himself. 

Ronan tips easy under his hands as he pushes him back, so he reclines horizontal against one side of the couch. Adam only hesitates a moment before climbing up onto the cushions with him. The sofa groans beneath their twin weight. Adam tucks himself up beneath Ronan's chin, his ear pressing home, intimate as the lover he's always been, against his chest, where his heart beats away, even with slumber's steady beat. He reaches out to extricate Ronan's arm from the crease of cushions and wraps it around himself. 

Ronan's breath evens out, a tranquil flatline that will surely haunt Adam for the rest of the night. Ronan may sleep easy tonight, but for now, Adam presses himself as close as he can get, and thinks.


	4. Purple Petals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cabeswater loves its little flower child...
> 
> (pardon the Latin. I don't have the proper devices to translate it myself, so if it's sloppy, it's because I put it through google translator.)

She was named for early spring. An early spring in the midst of autumn, but springtime nonetheless. Cabeswater fell in love with her the minute her parents laid her down in its mossy bed. And although she was too small to process such complex emotions, she would learn with time, that she was deeply fond of the forest too.

They brought her to Cabeswater that day utterly nameless, with still no hint of who she was but a tiny speck to be held and coddled and rocked to sleep. Although she possessed all the working parts of a human being, she wasn’t quite a real, living person in their eyes. Not yet. Not until she had a name.

Blue, Gansey, and Noah were overzealous with ambitions culminating toward the infant’s first photoshoot. Cabeswater seemed to answer their call immediately, not even a single whisper, but a feeling, truer than life itself. Blue made the suggestion, accompanied by Noah’s dreamy sigh, eyes wide with wonder. The camera slung around his neck, sleek, black, and bigger than his face in its professionalism. His fingers fiddled with the lens cap, as if the images already came to him unbidden.

Sargent would be celebrating his first birthday soon enough. It wouldn’t hurt to document the milestone if nothing else…

With the sunlight peeking out behind the canopy above them as they lay in the soft, dewy grass, for Ronan and Adam, the moment felt very much like an introduction. _Cabeswater, meet our child: the product of union between Greywaren and magician. This was partly your doing and we’re grateful._ The rustling leaves purred the forest’s approval. 

_Scio quod faciet. Et amatur.  
I know what you have wrought. And she is loved._

The pair of them gazed upwards as the forest showered fluttering petals down upon them, in its own personal felicitations for the birth. Noah continued to snap away above them, utterly unnoticed. One fair, full, purple flower landed upon the baby’s soft, ticklish cheek. Her small, button nose wriggled, contemplating the hint of a fuss. Adam reached out to pick up the offending blossom by the stem before the tears welled up into a tantrum. Ronan watched him examine the specimen held delicately between thumb and forefinger.

“Violets,” Adam noted in perfect wonderment. He caught Ronan’s glance from over their daughter’s head.

“Violets,” Ronan agreed, his voice rough in awed whisper. He blinked, carefully blowing falling petals out of his eyes. Cabeswater’s kind breath against their faces nudged gentle affirmations. 

When next Adam spoke, his reverent words were for their daughter alone. “Violet.” One finger traced along her baby-soft cheek. She leaned into it, an infantile instinct, and there were those eyes, huge and indecisive of its particular shade of blue in her doughy little face.

Noah lowered the camera marginally at the momentous occasion. Blue watched them from atop a nearby stump, breath bated and hands over her mouth. Gansey stood leaning against a pine, beaming away his pride at Adam and Ronan and Cabeswater around them as Sargent clung to his father’s leg and gazed up at him with a mimicking, toothy grin. 

There was their answer.

“ _Violet_.” The rest of the world fell away, with no one else left but Adam, Ronan, and this child they created between them. Ronan’s hand found Adam’s, fingers splayed across their daughter’s chest. Adam’s lashes fluttered shut as he leaned in to kiss him, just the tender once while Noah snapped away above them and the baby -little Violet- curled up between them, body warm and alive beneath their joined fingers. 

The picture sits on their mantle now, sunlight playing shadows here and dapples there, leaving a perfect family silhouette, tangled up in grass, leaves, violet petals, and each other. 

Sixteen years later, Violet settles in the very same clearing that christened her, wielding a rucksack full of instruments no ordinary teenage girl would think to bring into the middle of a forest alone. The deep purple bag gapes open beside her as she tinkers with beakers and flasks and liquids not meant for unsupervised little girls. She’s not so little anymore; she knows how to quantify risks, especially the most foolish of them all. 

"Hey, Legs!" a voice rings out through the underbrush some time later. 

"Yo, Stretch!" Violet lets out her returning call, her beaker stoppered and lost in the grass as she flings up an arm in greeting. She neither gets up nor stops in her ministrations as Sargent trudges through the trees to join her. 

" _What_ in god's good name are you doing?" Sargent asks her with that ever-present goodnatured laugh laying down the foundation of every undertone in his voice. 

"Chemistry," she replies without looking up. She's gone back to pouring liquids from beaker to flask with careful concentration.

"Uh huh. And where'd you get your juice?" He nudges his chin toward her multitude of liquids n stoppered beakers. 

"Blue," Violet confirms as she pours a mysterious liquid of that precise description. Sargent is entirely charmed by the way her tongue sticks out between her teeth to showcase her deep concentration. "Or maybe Dad? He could've dreamt it up."

Sargent lets out a disbelieving tut with a shake of his head. The Gansey-Sargents and Lynches have always been rather unorthodox when it comes to teaching methods. When they stumbled upon homeschooling as the answer to their problems, they went about it in the most extreme route. Spontaneous self-taught chemistry seems to be Violet's lesson of the day... "The things our parents trust us with. You'd think they'd be worried about letting us nuke the world or something."

"With your uncanny ability to fall on your face and destroy everything in a single bound? Quite likely." She nods in consideration. "Speaking of, where's the gremlin?"

Sargent breathes a put-upon sigh. "Don't talk about my sister that way."

Violet rolls her eyes, positioning a wrack on the grass in front of her, digging its three tripod legs deep into the earth to keep it standing. "Fine, you're right. Gnome is so much more accurate. Where is our fair queen of the munchkins, then?" 

"Out with friends." He shrugs, his turn to be disinterested. His gaze falls to Violet's steady hands as they prop the flask up on top of the wrack. It's not immediately clear what she's doing unless she plans on rubbing two sticks together, but then...

Violet blinks and a fire errupts from beneath her apparatus, the ground beneath it completely untouched. She pulls her hands away from steadying her instruments to give herself a round of applause in triumph. Cabeswater always did listen to her most... Changing things at the drop of a hat, ever at her beck and call. "Fraternizing outside the inner sanctum, is she?" Violet deadpans, sitting back stoic on her heels, her little victory celebrations behind her. "That's it- we're gonna have to kill her."

"Where will you get your pixie dust then?"

Violet lets out an indignant snort. She has no time for pixie dust. Sargent knows that. As she sits there in her black tank, roughened dark leggings and combat boots with fire at her fingertips, she couldn't look less like someone who cared for pixie dust if she tried. "Noah. _Obviously_."

Sargent shakes his head, fond as ever. Violet's concoction turns from blue to orange under the heat. "Are you sure that's safe?" he enquires warily as he slumps down onto the grass across from her, tucking his long stork's legs beneath him. He eyes the vibrantly coloured liquid with growing suspicion. 

"Nope," Violet quips, giving him a swift show of her wrist, gloveless today to avoid potential catastrophes. 

"Jesus, Vi!" He scoots around the fire and leans over to snatch her arm.He inspects the damage, her skin red and raised with burns. "What did you do to yourself?"

"Hydrochloric acid. Bit me." She shrugs, as if handling acid with bare hands is simply an everyday thing. 

"Doesn't it hurt?" He winces just looking at it while he prods the puckered flesh with the pad of his thumb.

Violet furrows her brow. "No." The single word bursts out of her as if he's just suggested something utterly insane. 

"How?" he insists, and somedays, he's entirely too Gansey for his own good. Leave it to Sarge to mother everyone, just like his father...

Violet scrunches her face at him, like she can't believe he doesn't already know. When nothing is forthcoming, she sighs. "Cabeswater," she admits, then waits for it to sink in.

He frowns. Her wrist is still in his grasp and he's been absentmindedly stroking his fingers up and down the raised welts all this time. Violet's ready to wrench it back out from his grip if he doesn't get a clue... He doesn't. His fingers still. "Explain."

She rolls her eyes once more with an irritated sigh. "Greywaren meets Magician. Falls in love, makes a miracle dream baby. Cabeswater protects." She pulls herself out of his grip to stretch out her fingers wide, like jazz hands frozen in time. Surely he'll get it now... Sargent carries on with his well-practiced blank stare. " _I can't be harmed while I'm in the forest._ God, Sarge. Keep the fuck up."

"You're far more proud of that than you should be," Sargent observes, settling his chin in his upturned palm, elbow balanced on his knee in effected boredom. "Your volcano looks like its about to blow." 

Indeed, her concoction has become a volatile, bubbling thing. The wrack teeters beneath the rattling flask. Things like these are dangerous in Violet's hands, and she hasn't quite learned where to draw the line.

She lets out a yelp and the fire flickers out before the frothing cocktail boils over and breaks something. Here, buried in the arms of the trees, Violet's safe; she's protected from the ills of the world. Where fires are kindled and stoked with a mere thought. But out there in the world, a storm brews beyond Cabeswater's reach. It's a battle she'll have to fight on her own; a battle she'll be walking straight into, blind. A battle she may not come out of alive.


	5. Found Purpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noah Czerny is the keeper of memories...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this chapter got away from me when I wrote it, so have 7 pages of backstory!!! :D

Noah Czerny picked up a camera for the first time before his friends’ graduation. Of everyone within the close-knit group, he knew the horrors of impermanence the best. It gnawed at him more and more each day looming closer and closer to their separation. None of them knew where life would take them, but Noah saw enough in each of them to know where their desires would lead.

Adam, he knew, itched to leave. He made no secret of his hard-earned plot to escape Henrietta’s tight constraints. But when he spoke of slipping out of the cuffs tying him here, only he and Noah knew how safe and familiar his straightjacket had become. It would take more than college to pry this magician out of his hometown. Not when his bonds went by the name of Ronan Lynch, and tied tight, slipping deep into his veins.

Ronan remained the lone soldier of their three man, one woman, and one ghost army unwilling to flee the coop. His particular species of bird stubbornly refused its migratory patterns. Here his home lay at his feet, and here he would stay. He had no reason to leave.

School took Blue traveling, beyond Henrietta’s reach, searching far and wide for that one thing that made her tick. Was it tropical birds, feathers gleaming rich purples, greens, and blues in the sunlight? Was it feminist rallies railing against pro-lifers violently terrorizing nervous women walking into abortion clinics? Was it relief work behind office desks, and late-night calls from the helpless souls of the world, bleeding and battered, and desperate for someone to find them a home, a meal, or freedom from an abusive husband? At the time, she hadn’t known, but she was blissfully eager to meet this potential Blue Sargent everyone kept talking about…

Gansey’s foot had been in the door of every Ivy League school, plus Cambridge and Oxford across the pond since birth. His choice was an easy one in following Adam to Harvard. Not because the thought of leaving every single one of them gutted him the most, and keeping at least Adam under his watchful eye would be enough. But because conveniently, the university offered their best by way of their history program. Plus, Adam Parrish, one of the many loves of his life, and one of his favourite sons would be there to keep him company. Truly, keeping one of them was a blessing…

And so off the four of them went, on their tangential ways to find themselves and the wide wide world they belonged to. And from that moment they each stepped down from the stage, diploma in hand, there was Noah, his camera his latest companion. 

It was a simple thing back then. The gang were well acquainted with polaroids, from their long treks in the forest, to lazy nights at Monmouth. Ronan’s old polaroid camera dug up from the treasure heap of The Barns documented them all. And Noah took up the contraption with most loving conviction. 

The months leading up to their goodbyes, Gansey presented their resident ghost with a gift, carefully wrapped in a plethora of glittering papers and twirling ribbon. (Blue had, in fact, showered the large box with glitter, a perfect final touch.) Within would become the first of Noah’s own personal cameras. It never left his side, that precious gift of his. When he felt himself flickering out, he would wordlessly hand the heavy contraption over to the nearest person, careful as if depositing a baby into a waiting lap. No harm could ever come to that camera. Ever. Memories clung to its every button and clasp. None of them could afford to lose anything swept up in the film, tucked away within. Money may buy a college education, or a trip around the world, but it would never return lost memories. So he snapped away until each of them left, one by one, until all that remained was Ronan Lynch and a fading ghost beside him.

The five of them kept surprisingly close within those four years. Adam and Gansey took up an on-campus flat together almost instantly. Blue sent post-cards teaming with wildlife images from her tropical rainforest expeditions. Noah was surprised to find between Adam, Blue, and Ronan’s individual magical influences, he could appear on a whim between their three pinpoints on his eternal map. Ronan took long road trips out to visit his Ivy League Boys over long weekends, wondering each time what on Earth he was doing there.

Somewhere along the line, Ronan Lynch made a terrible mistake in falling in love with Adam Parrish. It looked good on paper, this image of them, blissfully happy together in their midnight plots and reckless careening while strapped to trollies or the back of cars… But now, with several states between them, he didn’t know who they were anymore. Each time he arrived at Adam Parrish: law student supreme’s door, he lost count of the reasons he came, leaving them to dwindle in the soft breeze of this odd town with its odd, pretentious scholars walking its odd, cold streets. Adam was becoming a part of this machine, in this illustrious city. And what was he compared to it? How could he compete?

So he did the only thing he could think of.

He proposed.

It was either that or leave, quiet as a mouse, as if he’d never come, and walk right out of Adam Parrish’s life for good. God knew Adam didn’t need him anymore. Not when he would pass the bar with flying colours, not when he found himself a law firm, befitting of a prince, having fought for his filthy lucre by merit alone. 

Under the flashing lights of Noah’s keepsake generating camera, Adam Parrish said yes. With an ultimatum on his mind.

Ronan Lynch would move in with him that final year of law school, see him through his long nights of studying, and tuck a blanket around his shoulders when he fell asleep at his books. They took long walks around the city, stars gleaming above them, Adam’s engagement ring gleaming from entwined fingers between. Adam took him to all his favourite haunts; the hidden nooks safe from prying eyes and cheapest places for the best food… 

And for a full year, Ronan lingered, a ghost in his new home, pining for the old. The city wasn’t his to conquer. It was all Adam’s. Gansey’s, even. But not Ronan’s. At night, when Adam was caught up in the grip of the dusty old stacks of the Harvard libraries or spinning in the whirly-gig social life befitting of would-be lawyers, Ronan found himself alone on streets far too cunning to let him get away above speed limit. Standing outside in the cold, breath steaming from chapped lips, as he gazed up at the window of Adam’s desired Spot in the library left him nothing but humiliated and empty. 

What was he waiting for? What did he think would happen? He didn’t fit in this life of Adam Parrish’s. He couldn’t make himself fit; contort himself into the person who married a profound lawyer, who lived in a big city, in a house with a white picket fence and nosy neighbours… He wasn’t That Guy. He couldn’t be That Guy. Not for Adam. Not even for himself…

And it broke his heart when instead of walking away that fateful day Ronan tried to call it off, Adam followed him home to Henrietta, where The Barns awaited them with open arms and a quaint little law firm took to Adam in a heartbeat. Adam meant to fly, far far away from here. And here Ronan was, coaxing him back into his cage. The worst of it was, Adam came willingly.

Gansey and Blue followed them home soon enough, Blue, with ambitious dreams of turning Monmouth into a shop for all her crafting, sewing, holistic needs; Gansey, with a phD soon to be put to rest. And with a little surprise of their own to match Ronan and Adam’s engagement announcement. 

They’d each, in their own ways, come home to start a family. Despite its thunderous undertones of storms approaching, Noah and his camera could not have been more delighted.

They set to work on renovations and wedding preparations almost immediately upon their reunion. While Blue took to her plans with arms spread wide with gesticulations toward a work table here and stock shelves there, Ronan took to his own utterly monosyllabic. Yes. No. The Barns. St. Agnes. Cabeswater. Gansey. Noah. Blue. Matthew. No fucking Declan. _Christ._

He was lost in a sea of people who had their whole lives figured out. Adam with law, Blue with the shop, Gansey with academics (the pair of them expecting a _baby_ , for god’s sake), even Noah, with fucking photography. The resident _ghost_ had more of a calling than Ronan did.

If Ronan thought planning a wedding to the love of his life- a man he fought hard to spend the rest of his life with- would bring him some sense of purpose, he had been sorely, and dreadfully mistaken.

All he felt was a hollow need to take his fiance by the hand, lead him onto a plane to a bigger city than he could offer and walk away. But Adam Parrish knew what he wanted. And he wanted Ronan Lynch. He would do what it took to keep him. Even if it meant returning to his hometown, full of bleak childhood memories.

“Do you know what else this town is full of?” Adam asked him one night, one of Noah’s photo albums in hand. He curled up in Ronan’s lap before he could protest, spreading out the wings of the book wide between each arm of the easy chair. “Memories I got to share with you. You and Gansey and you and Noah and you and Blue, and you.” He punctuated each pronoun with a shower of kisses to Ronan’s face, a clear testament to his adoration. By the time he was through with Ronan, the album had slid off his lap, onto the floor at their feet, pages spread to showcase the grinning faces that marked happiness held right here, in this wicked little town.

Adam Parrish’s every move, every breath, every action was an I love you, whispered, or otherwise shouted into the swirling void that had swallowed Ronan Lynch, his latest goal to fill up those gaping holes in Ronan’s heart and head, until he completely forgot that profound echoing emptiness deep in his soul.

_You have a purpose, Ronan Lynch._

Even Cabeswater whispered it while he slept. He’d be damned if he knew what that alleged purpose was.

“Can’t love be enough of a purpose?” Blue asked one day around a large spoonful of frozen yogurt, embellished with what appeared to be bacon bits. She balanced the bowl expertly upon her expanse of belly from her seat on the bar stool across from Ronan. “You love Adam. Adam loves you. You love this farm. What more purpose do you need?”

Blue, like the rest of them, simply couldn’t comprehend the notion that Adam Parrish could not be his purpose, so long as he belonged far far away from here. 

Gansey took a different tactic altogether. “What if we all moved in together?”

Adam glanced up from his case files for the first time in seemingly hours. Blue dropped her spoon halfway to her mouth, leaving it to fall with a clatter onto the newly-tiled floor. Noah nearly blinked right out of existence. Ronan simply gaped.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, man,” he hissed. “We can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Gansey pressed his elbow to the counter, daring Ronan to contradict him. “You always said Monmouth and The Barns were home. The Barns, where you grew up, and Monmouth where we made history. We were happy here once. Together, under one roof.”

“I can’t ask you to do that,” Ronan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off the oncoming freight train of a migraine. His dreams would be a feast tonight… “You and Blue are starting a fucking _family_. And Adam and I…” He shook his head. “I can’t let you do that.”

“That’s what you said when you refused to marry me,” Adam piped up, so quiet, none of them were quite certain he’d even said it, or if it was simply transmitted through mysterious radio signals of the leylines’ doing. “When you took back your proposal like you didn’t mean it.”

“Parrish…” Ronan warned at a sigh. This was neither the time nor place. Not in front of Blue and Gansey, playing happy families in their perfect domestic bliss… He saw what they were doing. Here Blue was, ready to pop, and Gansey wanted his two best friends to be a part of the momentous occasion when she did. Like they were his too. Adam Parrish wasn’t Gansey’s to keep either…

“No,” Adam refused to entertain Ronan’s moping for a minute longer. “Here’s the thing. I _know_ my purpose and I _know_ what I want. I’m marrying you, Ronan Lynch. I’m marrying you. And if living here with the people I love most is being laid out on the table, I’m doing that too. Don’t forget what we are to you, Ronan. We know you better than anyone else does. If anyone can help you find your purpose, it’s us. Stop thinking we’d all be better off without you. We like having your moody ass around.”

“But Adam likes your moody ass _the most_!” Noah hollered in brutally honest sing-song, few words that debilitated the whole group, first with Blue, full of nonsensical hormones that had her laughing to tears at the simplest of things, and working its way around, until even Ronan had to chuckle, his existential troubles momentarily forgotten.

Weeks later, Ronan would find his purpose. All eight pounds, nine ounces of it, carefully cradled between crooked elbows. The unfortunately monikered Richard Campbell Gansey IV (to henceforth be known simply as Sargent, upon his exhausted, but impressively feisty mother’s demands), did unusual, complicated things to Ronan’s heart. Things he hadn’t thought it capable of since his little brother, Matthew’s own worldly debut, or since laying eyes on Adam Parrish the first time. He knew in that instant, he would do anything for this small human, his godson.

Little did he know, that fateful night would lay the groundwork for his deepest, most secret desire yet: to become a father himself.

Wedding plans came to him and Adam in a flurry in the months that followed. Sargent became a regular fixture at The Barns, forever a calming influence on Ronan’s frenetic mind. All it took was Blue plunking him down in Ronan’s lap to quiet his mind and draw the most tranquil flower arrangement choices from the deepest decision making corners of his brain. 

Here they were, in the midst of planning a wedding, when Adam knew now, knew without a doubt in his mind, what Ronan wanted most was not a holy union, but a _child_.

Ronan wouldn’t entertain the thought outright. “What do you take me for, Parrish? A common whore?” (Adam was certain had Blue heard this particular insult, she would have dragged him down by the ear and sat on him until he took the words back.) “You’ll have to marry me before knocking me up.”

But life had peculiar ways of working. The deeper down Ronan shoved his longing, the more it festered. More and more often, he would wake to find the soft cotton of a baby’s onesie clutched in his hands, too small to accommodate his growing weed of a godson. And more and more often, Adam would worry about what other things he was capable of dreaming up.

While Ronan slept soundly in their shared bed, Adam’s mind whirred with possibilities. What would dreaming up a child mean for them? How could he live with himself if he were to ever lose his husband and child in one fell swoop? 

“What’ll we do if something happens to you?” he pondered into the darkness one night to the quiet night around him. He hadn’t expected Ronan to be awake, so quick in dreaming was he. Yet with a sinuous roll of shoulders, there he was, staring straight into him, his eyes glowing obsidian in the dark. 

Ronan had never seen Adam so frightened in his life. Not even the night he drove him away, bleeding and bruised from his father’s clutches.That stricken moonlit expression… They hadn’t even started a family; hadn’t even gotten married, and already, he was imagining the worst. Ronan knew there was only one thing to be done: never let it happen.

He stopped dreaming altogether after that. No sleep, no dreams, no child, no nightmares shared between them of blood-curdling _what if_ s. Simple as that. He could beat this. He _would_ beat this. One day, Sargent would enter his terrible twos and Ronan would be put off having a baby completely…

Except Sargent began teething first, howling and howling and howling his pain to the universe at large, and even still, Ronan simply wanted to snatch him up and hold him close to his beating heart, and pray that he could sooth away those tears. There was no revulsion. No panic. No distress. Not even a single case of holding the incessantly screaming child out at arm’s length, to return it to its mother. 

Because whether Ronan liked it or not, Sargent Gansey was two things Ronan could never resist: a small creature, and family.

His forthcoming daughter was simply a foregone conclusion, forced insomnia or no. 

As with any accident, all it took was one spectacular fight and a home-bar full of booze. Ironically, Ronan slept with no one but himself, yet out from his drunken stupour came vivid dreams of Blue and Gansey's blissful shared happiness, and his and Adam's life together, starkly missing something to drag it forward... But _she_ came to him most vividly of all, as if he had been dreaming her up his whole life. 

He would lose sight of the dream immediately upon waking, like getting lost in the stretch of a long hallway. But the squalling infant beside him on the mattress was proof enough of what he brought back. 

Worry would always be at the forefront of Ronan and Adam's minds when it came to their daughter, as could be expected with any anxious new parent... But this particular child's wellbeing was directly tied to her father's. One slip up on Ronan's part, and she could be snuffed out in a heartbeat. But while they had her, they tried to put this potential trauma out of their minds, and raise her as very best they could.

Within three months, Adam and Ronan were married.  
Within six months, Indigo Sargent was born.  
Within two weeks of little Indie's homecoming, Adam, Ronan, and Violet moved in, rounding out their family of eight.

And so they lived, loved, and laughed together, throughout the many shared years, watching their children grow up together. 

As he once did for graduations, weddings, and births, baptisms and christenings, Noah documented these precious moments too. In no time at all, his photographs became an essential fixture in Blue Lily, the shop raised below Monmouth from Blue's determined hands. She carved out a special corner, just for him, portraits lining the walls, and a special stool, set to quick-changed backdrops.

Noah could never handle clients on his own, not with the fear of fading out within a moment's notice... Blue or the kids kept keen company. The first few trials involved many confused faces, cocked heads, and a confounded, "aren't you a little young to be a professional?"

To which Noah, crestfallen by nature, replied, "Ma'am, I'm fourty-three. This is the oldest I've ever looked," while Sargent crowed with laughter. The following clients Blue made certain to ply with plenty homemade teas, calming on the mind, but utterly hallucinogenic (somehow specifically so), down to the very last drop. 

Noah made good money in photography. Money he would never need for himself save for barrels full of glitter of every colour, and the occasional birthday or Christmas present for his Monmouth family members. The rest went into the children's trusts, in part for college funds and future monetary needs, and in part toward emergency funds for the family. Not that either family needed the money, but the selfless act of altruism was never lost on them.

The photographs lining the walls and shelves and shelves of albums speak of happier times; times that meant many many things to so many of them. Noah's uncanny ability to capture a smile, utterly natural, out of the stoic likes of Violet or Ronan, or melancholics like Adam was, and still is, a true talent the family would never be able to see replicated. 

But sometimes, life doesn't imitate art and the fond grins over shoulders or shared admiring glances fall away until all that's left is the harsh reality that seeps into bones and rattles one cold, too cold to remember what it was like to be warm and loved again.


	6. Harsh Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam and Ronan need to talk.

When Adam returns home early on his Sunday night (a conscious endeavor in attempts to appease a scathing, or otherwise drunken Ronan out of his bitter loneliness), Ronan's words from the night before echo through him even still. _Don't leave._ What did Ronan dream of, that set his mind worrying that Adam wouldn't come back? Was his mind perpetually flying back to those days in Massachusetts, waiting for the other shoe to drop, knowing he didn't belong in Adam's pompous inner circle? Was it worries from when they first made their triumphant return to Henrietta, that Adam would wake up one morning and realize his big city dreams far outreached starting a small town life with Ronan?

Or was it the simple state of now, glazed with sinister potential for change, now more than ever, when Adam''s mind whirred with Ronan's detereoration from the drink? The simple difference is, now Ronan's actively pushing them all away. And this time, he may just succeed...

He catches Ronan out from the front porch, beer already in hand. Adam tries to tamp down the disappointment bubbling up within him, with no success. He's not even through the door yet at four thirty in the afternoon and Ronan's already unravelling for the night, settled in for another lonely evening. His grand assumptions have finally led him astray.

Adam didn't know what he intended when he carefully constructed his morning of paperwork and afternoon in court. His final case of the day ends at four sharp and he's in and out, no faffing about with further paperwork he knows would suck five hours of his life out of him; five hours he knows he wouldn't ever get back. So he gathers up his things, swipes up his brief case, and leaves, prompt and to the point. He thinks maybe he'll come home to the last few hours of the kids' daylight at The Barns before they whisk off to Monmouth for the week. Maybe he'll entice Violet to help him cook. Maybe Ronan could be coaxed out of his brooding cave with taste-tests and tales about each other's days. Maybe they'd turn the radio on and dance in the kitchen like they used to in Noah's photos. 

Maybe he was kidding himself.

He doesn't know who he's more ashamed of, Ronan, for doing precisely what Adam begged to God he wouldn't do, or himself, for the anger bubbling up inside him because of it. His dreams of a romantic evening stifle away in his mind and all that's left is disappointment. 

He breathes once through his nose. In, out, to steady his shaking hands and will a level tone in his voice when he announces, "we need to talk." He's barely through the door and already snatching Ronan's can out of his hands. "This," he lifts the half empty beer can in his hands in indication. "Needs to stop. I do not want another repeat of last night."

Ronan, still miffed and taken aback at Adam's assertiveness, takes the defensive in his sneer. "Was it no good for you, sweetheart?" He knows how he curled up on the couch with him. He knows how he left him there in the morning, tail between his legs like a coward. No good morning kisses, or lingering touches before rising to face the day. Just an early morning escape, straight into the arms of the law.

"You're drunk," Adam accuses, shaking the beer can at him. The longer he holds it, the heavier it weighs in his hand. Ronan shakes his head, vehement, nostrils flared and chin tilted upward to better leer at him. "Is this what you do when I'm gone? Leave the kids to their own devices and wallow in your self pity?"

Ronan's up in his face within seconds, chest to chest, and pointing a finger, right between Adam's eyes. "Don't you dare talk to me about how I raise my kid. You lost that fucking right when you chose work over us."

Adam's heart pounds with Ronan's proximity, close close close, charged and coiled as he strikes. But his possession hurts him most. _My_ kid. Not _our_ kid. Ronan's. As if Adam hasn't already had long nights of worrying about being cut out of their little family of Lynches. He knows what Ronan and Violet are like together. He's just a middle man, here to keep things from reeling out of control. They don't need him. "I work because I have to, Ronan. I work because it's the only thing I know. I work because I can't sit back here and do nothing."

"Yeah?" Ronan spits, all take no prisoners venom. Adam knows not to go toe to toe with a Lynch brother, but he's done this enough times by now that Ronan's intimidation tactics are lost on him. "And is that what you think I do all day? Is that what I've been doing for the past sixteen years while my daughter raises herself? Is that what you think? That I'm utterly incapable of moulding someone else into the beautiful, talented, independent person they've become? Because ohhh, that's obviously above violent skinhead _Ronan Lynch._ "

There's history there that lingers between them; a history Adam's not prepared to drudge up again. Adam's mind fills with paperwork anyway; of sitting down with Violet, talking out the possibilities of playing host to a few roughed up kids who need a home and a nurturing hand. Of Ronan's raised hopes as he throws himself into everything there is to know about the foster system. Of keeping their home interview results at bay, because he knows it won't be what Ronan wants to hear. Of Ronan's anger and dejection at finding out the foster system had been delighted at the prospect of Adam taking in a troubled teen or two... until they got a good hard look at his Irish thug of a husband. Of a purpose snatched out of Ronan's hands before he can even properly grasp at it.

"I'm a good father," Ronan reels on, now that he's on a roll. "A damn good father. And you don't get to waltz in here and tell me that I'm not, because you're not here. You're _never_ here."

"That's not fair," Adam whispers, backing away to create some space in the heat of their snapped tension. "Ronan, that's not fair. Did you know I was up at four in the morning yesterday, just so I could spend time in the garage with Indie? Did you forget I've been the one to tuck them into bed at night since before they could walk? No, I'm not here as much as I should be. But I try damn hard to make sure they know who I am and that I mean something to them."

But that's not what Ronan's trying to say. They both know that. They use the children as a front, a barrier to keep what's really bothering them both locked up tight. But tonight is not a night to skirt around the issue.

Adam's tired. _So_ tired. Too many arguments and late nights missing each other have culminated to this. He's done with it. He turns his back on Ronan, unable to look him in the face anymore. His grip slides on the beer can as his hands slick with sweat. He sighs. "Would I even still be here if it weren't for her? Would _you_?"

Ronan doesn't have the answer to that. All that's left of him is bitter words he's kept tamped down, deep in his gut for years. "What does it matter, man?" he asks, suddenly sounding like the ghost of his teenage self, volatile with so many things he's still learning about himself. "What does it matter when in two years from now, she'll be gone? None of it will matter. My eighteen years with her will be up, and I'll be back to being ingrate, Ronan Fucking Lynch. We're just a sidenote, man. Just a fucking sidenote."

Something inside Adam softens, but not enough to settle the fire in his veins. They're not done yet. Ronan doesn't get to lay down his self pity and expect for all this to be over. "Is this why you're drinking? You're afraid of losing her?" He says it in that way he talks to juvinile delinquents, cast out to the streets without anyone to give them a voice: soft and careful. But that's not who Ronan is anymore and he needs a firmer hand. "You know if you push her away; if you keep doing this to yourself, you're gonna kill her."

Ronan's eyes flash dangerous. Adam can feel his gaze slicing down his back. "Yeah- and maybe that's what I fucking want. Maybe what we all need is a clean break."

"Ronan," Adam whispers, suddenly terrified. His breath catches in his throat. Ronan hasn't quite realized the magnitude of his words, nor his audience.

Violet Lynch, product of his dreams, the dearest love of his life, the one person that brings Ronan's world to sharp focus, stands in the doorway, one hand flung out on the doorjamb as if she's run here, a carefree smile rapidly collapsing on her beautiful face. Utterly frozen by her father's sharp words.

"Violet." Adam reaches desperately for some semblance of damage control. "Violet, please. Don't-" but she's already gone, whisked away on the winds of wild misunderstanding.


	7. Thudding Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue and Gansey receive a distraught Violet at Monmouth, and she brings with her more than they bargained for... Meanwhile, Sargent has revelations of his own.

Adam’s voice is frantic over the phone when he calls. Gansey leans over the bar counter of the kitchen they added to the second floor of Monmouth seventeen years ago now, but which still feels newer than the rest of the building’s renovations. “Wait. Say that again. What do you mean she took off? Adam, calm down. Take a breath.”

Adam takes a breath… and carries on babbling at high speed, voice raised several octaves in his shrill panic. Gansey pinches the bridge of his nose. Some days, he’s still mothering his friends, even when they have kids of their own now. He still can’t comprehend a word Adam’s saying. Something about Violet and the BMW and Ronan taking off after her.

“Gansey, I don’t know how much he’s had to drink.” This above all his friend’s other words, he understands. There’s a timbre in his voice that’s different than the rest of his shaken nerves. This is more than just fussing over a rebelling daughter, shooting out into the night in a shiny car and nary a legal licence to show for it. This is about painstaking worry for an unpredictable bomb of a lover, utterly lacking in flashing lights or warning signals for when he inevitably self-destructs. Gansey supposes they’re both bombs waiting to explode. The only difference is, Ronan’s had a longer time to simmer. Violet’s particular brand of plutonium is fresh, new, and uncertain of how she might shake the world when she sets herself off. But Ronan… Ronan’s a potential problem.

“Look, Adam, it’ll be ok,” he coaxes steadily. “She’ll turn up. She always does. She just needs time to stew.”

“But Ronan,” Adam’s voice trembles across the receiver. 

“Ronan knows how to handle a car,” Gansey reassures him, and hopes beyond hope he’s right this time. He knows when Ronan’s particularly reckless, he’s fully capable of leaving his senses and spinning off the road. He’s just lucky it’s never come to anything detrimental… “He’s not dumb.”

“You didn’t see him, Gansey,” Adam insists. “He was so _mad_. And then Violet took off and he just…” _Lost it,_ is what he wants to say, but he knows Gansey won’t grasp the magnitude of the situation. Under ordinary circumstances, Ronan stands and fights, bellowing out a string of savage curses while Adam pulls the pieces together and does the sensible thing in the face of emergencies such as these. But tonight, everything inside him capsizes and he just bolts, instinctive paternal drive kicking right in. Not a single vulgarity crosses his lips, not even when Violet slams the door to the BMW shut and spins out of the driveway with it, kicking up dust under the reeling wheels. 

Adam’s used to watching Ronan pace the floors while he makes calls such as these to diffuse the situation. But Ronan’s long gone, leaving him alone to make sense of it all. He can’t do this alone. He can’t have the pair of them, out there in the world, ready to go off. He can’t stand here and let his daughter follow in the footsteps of her father.

God knows if Ronan crashes…  
(If _Violet_ crashes…)  
If Ronan crashes, it’s all over. For all of them.

He can’t think of it. He can’t lose them both in one fell swoop. He just can’t.

“Gansey,” Blue’s voice is urgent from where she’s poised, peaking through the curtain of the sprawling front window. She’s half twisted, one knee propped on an ottoman and one hand reaching up to pull back the velvet drapery from the glass. “She’s here.”

Gansey sighs a breath of relief, punching his glasses back up against his face with his forefinger. “Adam, she’s here. At Monmouth. She just pulled in. She’s _fine_.”

“Tell him to give her some space,” Blue reminds him pointedly from the door, awaiting the prodigal goddaughter with open arms and an understanding shoulder to cry on. Gansey repeats the message for Adam’s ears, to which he receives a litany of buts and what ifs. Adam’s always hurtling at full speed toward the worst conclusions...

He doesn’t know what Adam and Ronan said to her, but he knows Blue’s right and the pair of them need to back off while Violet sorts through her thoughts. 

When Violet finally enters, it’s not just an entrance, it’s an announcement, full of whirling winds charging at her back. The lights flicker as she crosses the threshold. A coursing rain pounds through the streets like wild horses, madness in their eyes, a driving force only rising up with Violet’s approach. The pelting shower traced through the neighbourhood, following the BMW’s lead, a great black cloud hanging over Violet’s head, just for her. Her boots are heavy on the tiles and she heaves, taking stock of them all. A rivulet traces down her collarbone, disappearing beneath the trim of her dark shirt. 

“Gansey…” Blue addresses her partner, once more while he's still distracted by hanging up the phone. With a single look at the state of their goddaughter, she realizes this feral creature is beyond her taming. They spent too many days of their youth staring down the downright demonic. Violet Lynch has a flash of it in her now. 

Gansey’s beside her like a shot, one hand reached out to squeeze Blue’s shoulder. “Violet,” he greets her as pleasantly as he can. “Are your parents going to be along or are you here alone?”

Her cheeks are stained a splotchy rose, a continuing pattern rimming each eye. She’s cried herself out on the way over, and the mascara she put on in a rush out the door that morning runs in a dark, dribbling track down her face. When she opens her mouth to reply, it’s Latin on her lips. An advancement of Latin Ronan hasn’t even started to impart upon her yet. “ _Pater meus me non indiget_ ,” she hisses, and the voice that slips out of her is not her own; not the disinterested or cutting remark of her usual ilk. It’s dark, dropped several shades from her usual tone. It scratches up from her throat, as if her tears have choked her. She stares out, right through and beyond them both, stormy eyes glazed as if she knows not what she says. “ _Volunt mortuis_.”

“Gansey…” Blue swallows from beside him, pressing a hand to the crook of his elbow. “Gansey, what’s she saying?” By the sinister sound of her words, she’s not certain she wants to know.

Gansey furrows his brow. His Latin never was quite as good as Ronan and Adam’s, even after four university level classes during his undergrad. “Something about her fathers not wanting something- no. _Needing_ something? And…”

His pause sends a chill down her spine. “What?”

Gansey sighs. “Death. They don’t want her, they want _death._ ”

Blue frowns. “Violet, honey,” she tries to appeal to the scared teenage girl buried deep down inside. “That can’t be right. They wouldn’t _say_ that.” Part of her hopes it's whatever has crawled under her skin saying these cruel words, simply speaking unkind half truths. Because Adam and Ronan would never _ever_ say such a thing to their only child. Not when they had fought so hard to give her someone to grow up with to no avail. Not when every system had failed them, and _especially_ not when every day is a conscious effort on Ronan’s part not to shatter her into a million tiny pieces. She’s too fragile for risks.

Standing here on the threshold of her second home, for the first time since she was a child, Violet looks small and scared as if aware, and afraid of what has taken hold of her. The rain pounds against the windows and tinny plinking roof. She’s folded her arms around herself to hold everything seeping out of her back in. She whimpers once, a wounded puppy’s breath and before the full stop of her babbling comes forth, her godparents realize why her voice is so coarse, why she’s speaking Latin. 

“ _Protego_ ,” Cabeswater whispers, speaking right _through_ her, before leaving her to collapse in a dead faint heap on the floor.

Blue’s heart thuds in her chest, a cold sweat settling over her as she goes to assess the situation. Violet’s pulse hammers in her wrist, her skin translucent fair over the blue sweep of her arteries. Blue glances up at Gansey from her crouch over her unconscious goddaughter’s prone body. “What in the _hell_ is going on with _Adam and Ronan_?”

Gansey swallows, his thumb working over his bottom lip in intense contemplation. “God, I don’t _know_. But I have a feeling we need to run interference.” His gaze has snapped to the bay window, where Ronan’s trudging up the drive beyond it, shoulders squared back, and looking wound up and ready for a fight. “ _Jesus_ … Someone better have some answers.” He’s already resigned himself to dealing with Ronan while Blue cares for his wayward daughter teeming with untapped magical potential. God, he can smell it from few feet away, both the copper tang of blood and leafy smell of the forest. The sensation leaves a bad taste in his mouth. He shakes it off and slips out the door before Ronan can tear it off its hinges to get to his incapacitated offspring. He doesn’t need to see this. Not tonight. 

She’s cold and shaking when Blue lifts her arm to wind around her shoulder and lift her off the floor. Violet’s waifish body is long, too long for Blue, but although she herself is small in stature, she manages to heft her burden to deposit her on the sitting room couch without second thought. 

A bedroom door opens with a creak in the background and Sargent’s clumsy tread sounds on the tiled floor, headed toward the kitchen. “Sargent,” Blue summons her son sharply into the opposite direction. He whirls on the spot, bracing himself on the protruding edge of the wall separating kitchen and sitting room. One single look at Violet laid out on the couch is enough to dislodge his heart and let it descend in a death-defying rollercoaster freefall right down to his toes.

“Oh my god, _Mom_!” Blue’s name comes to him first, because he knows Violet’s will stick in his throat. He rushes to the pair of them, where Blue’s small hands cup Violet’s unmoving cheeks. He wants to shove his mother aside and assess her for himself. He runs his fingers through his hair instead, leaving it in a greater tousled mess than it already was.

“Sargent, get me some ice. And some water for when she wakes up,” his mother orders him, sending him marching back into the kitchen he had originally set out for.

Sargent can’t help staring at the tear tracks over Violet’s pretty face. Violet’s not a girl who cries. She’s a girl who puts up a fight; who raises fists and shoves boot-clad feet into guts at a single insult. She could tear you down in a single swift move (he’s seen it with his own eyes. Several times.) In fact, he can’t even remember the last time he’s seen her cry, if at all. He thought at first maybe it was a dream thing, but he also knows the Lynch in her is resilient by nature. 

Who would dare bring Violet Lynch to tears?  
Who does Sargent have to confront to right such a heinous wrong?

“Sargent, _now_!” Blue presses, tearing him back out of himself and into reality.

“Right, yeah…” he shakes his head and reels back around to head into the kitchen. His foot catches on the heel of the coffee table leg and down he goes, a slapstick mess of flailing limbs at the least opportune moment.

And Vi’s not even awake to snigger at his efforts…

His cheeks burn warm with humiliation as he hauls himself back up and picks up at a galumphing jog to cross the few feet into the kitchen. 

She’s awake and vaguely lucid by the time he makes his gallant return, a frozen bag of peas wrapped in a tea towel in one hand and a tall glass of water in the other. She smiles feebly up at him when he hands his grateful mother the glass. 

“Hey, Legs,” he greets her gently, the tiniest of smiles tugging at the corner of his lips. He doesn’t know what the hell happened, but she seems alright now… He kneels down beside the couch next to Blue, who knows when to take a hint, even when her son has no clue he’s even given it. His fingers already sooth her curls out of her face as he attends to her, pressing the makeshift ice pack gently to her brow.

Violet’s always been Sargent’s business, especially when she needs to be cared for. Sarge knows his way around this vulnerable creature. Knows her better than he knows himself, and he, above all others, has what it takes to pull her out of any dire situation to befall her. Caring for Violet Lynch is as natural as breathing to him.

And so Blue sets the water glass down on the coffee table within Sargent’s reach, quietly slipping away, and leaving her goddaughter in his capable hands.

Violet clears her throat, parched with her brief slumber and an hour or two of wracking sobs from behind the wheel of a stolen car. “Yo Stretch,” she sighs, relieved to see him here. Her arm feels like a dead weight when she tries to reach for him. But he seems to know what she wants before she can ask it of him and his fingers cling to hers, a palm to palm kiss. 

Neither of them know what’s going on. The past hour is a blur of road rage and tears. The rest is all scratchy outlines of pencil smudges in the periphery of her mind. “I think I was speaking Latin…” she ponders unbelievably. 

Sargent raises a brow, one hand still reached up against her forehead. A lock of her fair hair twines around his forefinger like a lover’s knot. “You don’t even know Latin.”

“Well, I was trying for English, obviously,” she lets out an indignant tut that lets him know his Vi is just fine, thank you very much. “But that’s not what came out.”

“What, you were speaking in _tongues_?”

“Like the devil,” Violet confirms with a feeble cough and a feebler tip of her chin. Her mind begins to linger on what brought her here in the first place. God, her _parents_ … She closes her eyes, leaning into Sargent’s touch. “God, everything’s so fucked up.”

If everything’s fucked up, this is news to Sargent. He left her not two and a half hours before, happy as a clam, parting ways with a smile on her mouth and laughter in her eyes. _He_ did that to her. But Violet has a penchant for following her thoughts down the rabbit hole when left alone to her own devices and inevitably chases them into the darkest of corners. 

“Sarge,” she murmurs, lips pursing around her racing thoughts. “Did your parents ever… ever give you reason to think they didn’t want you? Like they resented your ever being born?”

Sargent frowns. “Is that what yours said to you?” He couldn’t imagine Adam and Ronan saying a word against her like that. She was the precious queen of their hearts… (Of _everyone’s_ hearts.) They would never… 

Violet shrugs from her reclining position. “Ronan seems to think it’d be better if I just… died.”

“What? _No._ ” Sargent shakes his head, vehement with the god given truth. “No. Vi, whatever he said, that’s not what he meant.” 

“You didn’t hear him.” Violet whinces as a corner of the pea bag slips out from its cloth containment, brushing too cold against her skin. Sargent pulls it away from her forehead. “God, Sarge, they were _screaming_ at each other.”

Adam and Ronan are _always_ screaming at each other. They both know it, and hear it often enough when the adults think they’ve gone to bed for the night. They scream, they fight, they say words they don’t mean just to spite each other. They make up and Sargent, Violet, and Indie sneak quietly out into the shadows of the farmyard, before they overhear something they shouldn’t from behind too-thin walls. 

“Hey, look. Vi, how is this different than any other time?” he wonders, openly curious. Something about this time is clearly different. Different enough to shake her to her core.

“Daddy’s been _weird_ lately. Like, more broody than usual,” she expands upon her troubles, chasing words she hopes beyond anything will convince him. “And the look on Dad’s face when he said what he said… He was _scared_ , Sarge. Really, really scared. You’re not supposed to be afraid of the people you love.”

Sargent can’t imagine ever being afraid of anyone in his family. Most of them are benign. But not even Ronan and Vi… Not even they make him flinch under their cold, unforgiving stares. He knows them well enough to have faith that they would never hurt him. And Ronan would never hurt the ones he loves… Ronan Lynch is as loyal as they come. It’s practically his family code. It’s in his _DNA…_

“I’m sure it’s all just a huge misunderstanding,” Sargent muses honestly, knowing it’s not what she wants to hear, but it’s also necessary to put her worries to rest. “They’ll make up, have angry sex, and get over it.”

“Oh, Sarge, _no_.” Violet cringes. “Wash your mouth out _immediately_.”

 _There’s_ his snarky girl he knows and loves. “You _know_ that’s what they do.” He shrugs, but can’t help but grin wickedly down into his lap where her hand still hangs there, tangled in his fingers. “You know what they say: the road to a happy marriage is paved with angry sex.”

“Who the fuck says that?” she barks out, too much too soon for her roughened throat. She falls into a hacking cough while Sargent beams mischief at her. She wishes she could throw something at him and break the tension so they might laugh about it, her pain miles into the distance. “See, this is exactly why your parents never got married.”

“Hmm, probably.They always were far too happy together for the sanctity of marriage.” He finds himself infinitely interested in a piece of fluff on his maroon sweatshirt, gouged with some 1968 university logo on the chest. Violet has not a single clue where he found this monstrosity. 

“What New Age hippy assholes…” she muses thoughtfully, falling back against the couch cushions. They fall into a comfortable silence for a moment before Violet pipes up, honest words sticking in her throat. “Hey Sarge?” Her fingers disentangle from his, leaving him bereft in the distance sliced between them before they’re doing something else: tracing the contours of his face, with just barely the pad, fingerprint light. “Thank you.”

Later in the night, Sargent helps her up off the couch and they settle on the wide, king size bed of their shared bedroom. There’s no Indie here tonight to keep the bed warm (she’s off again on one of her many solo adventures, flanked by quirky friends she picks up like mangy strays from unlikely corners of her precious little candy-coated world), which leaves just the two of them in this quiet, quiet room. 

They lie on their sides, face to face, simply content to watch one another in the familiar silence. After all the yelling, Violet’s relieved for some solitude, and grateful that Sargent can read her well enough to keep his own personal volume muted to a dull roar, thudding in her heart.

Sargent’s own heart trips along its usual path. If he’s not careful, this girl’ll make him stumble and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to get back up once he falls. But it’s easy to fall for savagely unattainable Violet Lynch. She’s so beautiful, he can hardly look at her some days, instead settling on pacing or making some loud, stupid joke to dissipate the tension pulled taut between them. 

_You love her_ , his soul winks at him. His heart picks up its pace in his chest and he can hardly contain it, lying here with this beautiful beautiful girl.

 _You don’t just love her, you’re_ in _love with her._

And of course, he is. He knows he is with such clarity he’s never known before, as she rolls, pressing herself home and warm, so warm, against his chest. Her errant curls tickle his chin as she tucks her face into the crook of his neck, breathing him in. His arms wind around her, knowing far better than his mind does what to do in this situation. Their legs tangle, and he can’t even remember a time when they weren’t one body, one mind, two very different, but complementary sides of the same coin. 

“Sargent?” His name on her lips, buzzing against his skin pulls him out of his night’s revelation. “Do you think anything will ever be the same?”

His hands have found their way back into her soft curls again as she glances up at him from the base of his throat. Her fingers pull at a wayward thread poking out of a block letter E on his chest. He releases a breath. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I really don’t know.” 

And he _doesn’t_ know. Because how can anything be the same, when you’ve fallen in love with your best friend?


	8. Teal Braids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Indie's Saturday adventures go like this...

Indigo Jane Sargent knows a thing or two about magic, and what it means to have it coursing through your veins from the moment of your conception. She’s had it in her for so long, she can’t remember a time without it. Her body hums, puttering along with its day, simply _running_ off it. She’s not magical like her best friend, Violet, pulled from a dream and commanding of the trees that bend to her very will. Nor is she magical like her brother, who makes paranormal energies louder simply by being loud himself. It’s quite a different brand of magic altogether, one she’s rather proud of in her uniqueness. 

She supposes it's not so extraordinary on the surface. People talk of love at first sight glibly, after seeing it time and time again in tired romantic comedy cliches. People are desperate for it anyway, living in the manic hope that one day, they’d look across the room and there they’ll be. But cynics tamp down such foolishness, insistent that love takes work. It takes getting to know people; even the ones who just don’t fit right.

The cynics haven’t met Indie Sargent. She finds this, of all things, hysterical. People have been coming together around her since before she could walk. There she’ll be, and perfect strangers will simply… _find_ each other. 

And it's not just _love_ -love either. It’s the lesser-known ones too; the ones that fall by the wayside in a sex and romance obsessed society, but are no less important than the all-encompassing romantic love. She has a knack for finding people. Catching a whiff of perfume, all morning dew and rose petals from three blocks down, and winding up standing in line behind stylishly dressed girls positively drenched in it at the nearby coffee house not ten minutes later… Seeing in her mind’s eye, a boy dropping his wallet before the moment even comes to pass… Hearing the sharp, cutting bully’s words from the schoolyard across the street as three thugs corner a poor kid who still doesn’t quite know what they are on the inside or out… 

She’s like a superhero like that. Coming to people’s aid before they realize they need it. It’s a little secret she likes to keep to herself, something just for her. But no one has quite figured it out yet. 

It’s how she makes _friends_.

No one quite understands how her power works exactly. Its beyond their comprehension, although, to Indie’s suppositions, it’s not all that hard a concept to grasp. It’s pure, undiluted love of all kinds, unjudging of faults, and uninterested in gender or sexuality. Her power _is_ love, as simple as that. She doubts a cynic could bear the burden quite so easily. But Indie bears it on her sleeve, light as a feather, and laughs, her tinkling bell’s laugh each time an unseen stranger niggles at a piece of her heart. She’s got enough to go around. It’s not going anywhere…

“She’s doing her weird Cupid voodoo shit again,” Violet would sigh again and again on any given trip out into the world with Indie in tow. Really, they can’t go anywhere with Indie; she’ll inevitably stop to talk to passersby on the street, or jog in the opposite direction to help a little girl fallen off her bike. 

“I keep telling her she should set up shop at 300 Fox Way.” Sargent shakes his head in response. “People should _pay_ her.”

“People should pay _me_ , for having to wait for Super Girl all the fucking time,” Vi bites back. “Hey, Tinkerbell, we have _places_ to be!” She shouts into the void. But it’s all in jest, no matter how late to movies Indie always makes them. Because she, fairy princess that she is, is doing good in the world. Good that Violet can’t even imagine doing herself, not with the barbed wires wrapped around her wrists and walls around her heart. She doesn’t even know what a person in need would want from her, let alone how to give it to them. Yet it always comes so easily for Indie, and Violet has to admit, deep down, she’s a little jealous of all that compassion.

Indie doesn’t tell her mother, but she turns it on in the shop, when it's her day to help stock shelves, trim rolls of fabric, or create glitzy new window displays. Blue Lily always attracts the most eccentric of people. It’s maybe not that much of a surprise, given that crafts, holistics, and coffee tends to bring in crowds on opposing spectrums… But there’s a harmony on that first floor of Monmouth, struck up in part by Blue’s impeccable eye for sprightly decor and combining of things one may not ever expect. The rest is all Indie. Her mother always did say when Indie was born, she put a little essence of herself into the shop. Fate played a hearty trick when gifting Blue Sargent with a newborn and a freshly opened shop within days of one another. Fate or no, Indie Sargent is a physical embodiment of Blue Lily: a walking, talking seamstress’s dream; a glittering mind full of unconventional creativity; a vibrant palate for natural remedies, soaps, and dyes. 

She’s good at pinpointing any given customer’s needs. If she can’t hand them a physical product, it’s soft words of reassurance, or a hint that a job or lover or other such fortuitous event will be right around the corner. (And often enough, they find it in the stacks not moments later, as if sprung up straight from this tiny human’s mind.) 

Blue knows Indie’s the shop’s good luck charm. But she still hasn’t worked out the simple fact that her daughter imbues love in her every tread, toward every person who walks through that door. That, she’ll keep to herself a little while longer…

The shop’s abuzz with its usual weekend shuffle. They get good customer traffic on Saturdays especially, and for good reason. With all that goes on in the shop, from arts and herbal remedy sales to coffee grinding to Noah’s photography, to crafts and sewing workshops, no one quite knows how on Earth Blue manages to fit everything in that single floor of the once-abandoned factory. Yet fit it does and satisfies everyone. 

Indie’s made her afternoon rounds, weaving to and fro around customers, idly browsing one minute, and chatting pleasantly with the strangers beside them the next, with nary a care in the world for the teal-haired sprite that brought them together. She’s still grinning her secret little smile, lost in an aisle full of hand creams and bath bombs, when she crashes side-long into one of her many strangers.

She didn’t see this one coming.

In profile, they’re smartly dressed, fine-pressed trousers and crisp white shirt, buttoned up to the throat, where a whimsical bowtie hangs there, jaunty as you will. A splash of yellow crosses Indie’s vision as two identical Batman cufflinks pin to each wrist, one hand raised in half inspection of the hair dyes until the momentous collision. 

By all means, everything about this perfect stranger is boyish, yet the face that greets her tells a different story. It’s soft around the edges, round, rosy cheeks, full lips, long, dark eyelashes… Their muddy hair is cut not unlike Sargent’s, if he’d learn to tame it one of these days, shaved in the back, and springing to one side in the front, following the stubborn line of a cowlick. 

It’s a handsome face. A _pretty_ face, even. Most of all, a face that defies proper definition. It’s not Indie’s business to define.

So she doesn’t. 

“Nice hair,” the customer compliments her with a lopsided grin. Their voice is decidedly feminine in pitch, but neutral in tone. Indie figures she kinda likes it.

It takes her a moment to gather herself before she remembers she’s rather a bit of a beacon, blue hair and all… “Oh, yeah!” She lets out a little forgetful tut at the gaff. “It’s actually one of Blue Lily’s dyes.”

“You work here?” they sound impressed, one hand poised on a bottle of lime green dye. 

Indie shrugs, her gaze turning back to the array of dyes before she catches herself staring for too long. Something tugs deep in her, and it’s not the ringing of magic this time. “Sometimes. My mom owns the shop. You could say I’m just a walking, talking advertisement…”

They let out a laugh, showcasing exquisite dimples on either cheek. Indie has to grip the shelf to keep herself standing. “Well, it’s effective!” 

Indie twists an elaborately twined braid in her fist. “D’you… have someone to help you with that?” she indicates the bottle, now securely in their hand. “Actually dying, I mean. Because if you don’t-”

“I don’t,” her customer insists, quick enough that Indie knows whatever is going on here is assuredly mutual. 

She purses her lips, leaning heavy on her right side. “I could help. I live right upstairs.”

The perfect stranger raises a carefully constructed brow. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to invite strangers into your home?”

“You’re not a stranger!” she insists. And from the off, she knows it’s true. They may have known each other for literally five minutes, and she may not know their name, but a calm settles in her, one reserved only for friends. Indie’s got a superpower, and it gives her killer first impressions.

This one is good. _So_ good. As in she wants to bring this one home and keep it, good.

They watch her, bemused. “How about coffee first?”

She hesitates only a moment before she shakes herself out of it and laughs. “Yes. Of course! As it happens, I know a place.”

“Let me guess: your mom owns it?”

“How’d you _know_?” They beam at each other, already old friends, simply lost in between reincarnations, eras past between them without crossing paths. Until now. 

Her newest companion, Indie finds over her warm chai latte (extra whip, please and thanks!), goes by the name of Sam. Not Samuel. Not Samantha. Simply, Sam. “That must be nice”, Indie tells them, “being a three letter word.” 

Indie wishes she were a three letter word sometimes. Something simple and unassuming. Her name’s always afforded her a spot of bohemian grandeur she hasn’t quite grown into yet. She isn’t sure she’s ready to take on full responsibility of being Indie Sargent. She likes who she is, exactly _how_ she is, sugar and spice, and everything nice, but she won’t deny, she wonders. And wondering, she realizes, seeing Sam before her, isn’t such a bad thing. 

They take off down the streets, the late-afternoon sun on their backs as Sam hauls her onto the back of their bike. They glide, houses whizzing past. When emboldened, Indie takes her hands up from their secure position looped around her new friend’s waist and let’s go, arms outstretched into the wind. Jack and Rose, carefree and together for mere hours, and already destined for great things together, laughing at the face of a potential danger on the horizon. 

This ship of theirs will never sink. Indie’s sure of it, wild with the possibilities at her fingertips and the tip of an iceberg too far away for her to see.


	9. Perfect Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Indie's perfect day is everyone else's stressful evening...

Indie comes home late in the evening, positively levitating with happiness begotten from perfect days of pizza at Ninos, marching along the ledges of walls, one by one, exploring new corners of the little town, and hilltop stargazing. Honestly, Indie never knows how she lucks out sometimes… 

They talk about all manner of things. About her unusual family situation, living between The Barns and Monmouth Manufacturing… about Sarge and Violet (and how a little time apart from them might do the soppy, besotted pair of them some good). About Sam’s enrollment at Aglionby…

Indie props herself up on her elbow to face them in the grass, the moon a glowing orb above them. “How did _that_ work out? If Aglionby’s a _boys'_ school?” She worries she’s asked the wrong question, but Sam accepts it patiently enough with a light chuckle.

“With great perseverance and a hell of a fight.” They shake their head, pausing to take a brief pull at the single beer Sam picked up around the corner with a fake ID. “No one really questioned it when I got there. They’ve been accepting trans boys for the past ten years now… But the moment I walked in with a pleated skirt, the board had to either re-evaluate the dress code or who they’re accepting into the school. You can imagine the conversation that went down in that meeting… If they’re already accepting trans boys and now gender queer students, they may as well accept girls too…”

Indie’s eyes widen in the dark. “They _wouldn’t_!” she gasps. She’s heard the stories about the raven boys from her parents. Hell, half her family went to Aglionby. Ronan, Adam, Noah, Dad… All of them raven boys. An academy with that much prestige and steeped in that much patriarchal tradition...

“They would,” Sam confirms with a precise nod. “Not this year, but soon enough.”

Indie stares back at them in the darkness, the stars glittering luminescent above them. “Why Aglionby though?”

Sam shrugs. “My family has the money. And I figured if I was going to be myself, and I mean, _really_ be myself in the truest form I needed to be, I might as well do it in an environment where I could learn to walk the walk and talk the talk.”

“You wanted to learn how to be a boy.”

“I wanted to learn how to tap into that other side of myself, sure. Doesn’t really matter if it was boyish or not. I just wanted to be accepted.” 

“And you started a revolution instead,” Indie murmurs, in awe. She has a knack for surrounding herself with world changers. Adam: saving troubled kids one court case at a time. Dad: imparting wisdom unto students. Mom: constantly challenging patriarchal expectations of what it means to be a working mother and business woman all rolled into one. Violet: daring the world to fight her every step of her day. And she hasn’t even gotten started on the many women at 300 Fox Way…

And here Sam is, a walking revolution all on their own. Changing the world. And what does she have to offer? 

Love. Pure, unadulterated love in all forms of the word. She shakes her head. Her potential is far too big for this tiny body of hers. She’s too big for this _world_. 

“I’m really glad I ran into you today,” Sam admits, open and honest like the rest of them. “You’re really cool.”

Indie blushes. Furiously. One of Sam's soft hands reaches out to tug one of her intricate braids, a gentle, teasing pull. “No, _you’re_ really cool.” She can’t imagine even surpassing the level of cool that Sam is. They’re just so… casual about it. Like it doesn’t take changing the way the whole world views them to do it. “Like… so _so_ cool.” 

She likes this feeling, this fresh, new feeling, settling in her chest. Butterlies fluttering away in her stomach. This… this is something. She’s glad they’re both reclining, because just looking at Sam makes her want to dissolve into a puddle right here in this dewy grass. She drops her gaze, eyelashes fluttered in embarrassment for how unravelled she is. 

“Indie,” Sam addresses her, the inflection in their voice going up as if asking a question. “I really want… That is- can I…” They fumble for a moment, coaxing the words out. Indie simply watches, waiting patiently, heart pounding away like it knows what it wants to hear. “Can I kiss you?” 

Indie sits up from her lazily reclining position and shifts closer to her new companion. One hand grips at the collar of Sam’s shirt to pull them down, careful as anything, while the other reaches up to cup a softened jaw line. It’s nothing special. No fanfare or fireworks exploding up above. Just the simple meeting of lips; a chaste peck. But she’s lost her breath like she’s run a marathon anyway. “Yes,” she sighs. “Yes, of course.” 

It’s not supposed to be a big deal when she slinks home, rather a bit later than her parents expect. They’re not ones for holding their children to curfews. They never have. Which is why her father’s woebegone voice calling her name, middle name and all, as she trudges through Monmouth Manufacturing in the dead of night is simply out of place. 

“Indigo Jane, where _have_ you been?” Richard Campbell Gansey III nags from his position, poised on the couch, arms crossed and fingers drumming against an elbow.

Indie frowns. “Out,” she offers her vaguest explanation. She doesn’t remember the last time her parents actually fussed about her late night gallivanting. They happen often enough... _Out where? With whom?_ “With friends… just around. God, Dad, _what_ is the big deal?” 

“The _big deal_ is Violet took off today. Adam’s been worried sick.” Her father’s not mad at her. That she can tell. He just worries, as always. And if Violet took off…

“Is she ok?” she blurts. There’s any number of things Violet would do if ever set off… All of them dangerous. 

Gansey lets out a weary sigh, like his day’s too long and only getting longer. The exhaustion in his aging face speaks of leftover panic already induced by one rebellious teen today. He doesn’t need any more. “She’s fine. She and Sargent are in the bedroom. She’s a little shaken, so just… be careful.”

“What happened?”

Gansey waves a dismissive hand, his other reaching up to peel his glasses off his face. He rubs his eyes, so tired of all of this, even as it’s only just begun. “Ronan and Adam are in a bad place. Just… be there for her, ok?”

“Are they gonna be ok?” she presses, a little too inquisitive for her own good.

Her father sighs, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. The implications of all this falling apart is too much for him to contemplate right now. He knows he’ll be up all night, nursing the thought like an incurable plague. He wishes one of them had come to him sooner. “I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know.”

Indie leaves him to his long night of brooding ahead, quietly slipping through the door of her bedroom. She doesn’t bother turning on the light, knowing that Sargent and Violet are probably already asleep by now, and instead brings her phone to life, just enough to illuminate her way to the dresser.

And there they are, pressed closer than Indie’s ever seen them touch before, Sargent’s face buried in Violet’s gold-spun hair from over her shoulder. Violet, spooned right up against him, back to front. They fell asleep holding hands, and Violet tugs his fingers in her own, cradling his hand close to her chest likea precious gift as she shifts in her sleep with the smallest incoherent mumble. 

This is a tableau worth preserving: the perfect snapshot of things to come. Indie backpedals away from the dresser, and instead chooses a quieter route toward her bedtime ritual of swiping one of Sargent’s shirts from off the floor. She makes her hasty retreat, turning to get one last look at the slumbering pair from the doorway. 

They may just be ok after all...


	10. Star Sworn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sargent's a hopeless romantic who never does anything halfway.

She wakes up alone, rolled to one side of their enormous bed, still smelling of him. Sargent’s everywhere in this room, his presence larger than can be contained. Her head buzzes with the unpleasant dehydration of crying herself out last night and the pounding isn’t helped by the distant strains of Sarge’s voice drifting from beyond the bedroom door. He’s singing show tunes from the kitchen again, which always means he’s cooking. 

Violet groans and rolls herself off the edge of the bed and pads barefoot out of the room. The lush scent of bacon hits her immediately upon opening the door, as does Sargent’s booming tenor, lovingly doling out the strains of Les Miserables’ “Stars.” His grandparents (the affluent, moneyed ones) had him classically trained from the age of ten and their efforts ooze from him in ways it never quite did with his father before him. Broadway would welcome him with open arms one day, Violet is sure. His voice, crystal clear and pitch perfect, would drive any other girl to tears. And if Violet gets choked up around the second verse, she keeps it to herself, leaning against the doorway with arms crossed as she watches him shimmy bacon strips off a spatula and onto plates. 

_With order and light, you are the sentinel…_

He is a star. He’s _her_ star. Her sentinel. A beacon in the dark, lighthouse guide through the cold, cutting fog. He’s done more for her than anyone ever needs to, or should, in Violet’s regard. Why on Earth would she ever deserve a boy like this? A boy who talks her down from madness, a boy who holds her through the night. A boy who makes her breakfast in the morning, belting showtunes like a perfect nerd, all while wearing low slouching cotton sweats and his sister's t-shirt, far too small, and exposing one long, lanky torso. How could she ever imagine this could be for her? 

He turns, beaming through his words, and directs the last rising chords to her, arms outstretched like he’s truly performing as he finishes _this I swear by… the… stars!_

Violet sniffs, swallowing back her rising tears, because _she will not let him see her cry_ , and gives him a steady slow clap round of applause. He gives a sweepingly dramatic ragdoll bow and he’s back to being normal Sarge again, spell broken, nullified, caput. “Thank you to my biggest fan, Violet Lynch…!” he exclaims with gratitude to an invisible crowd.

“Oh, fuck you,” she bites out, her words gravelly with emotion she can’t quite tamp down. “You’re such a nerd.” 

He turns to fuss with about half a dozen plates on the counter. Bacon. Sausages. Eggs. Berries. He fucking made _pancakes_. “How _early_ were you up this morning?”

Sargent shrugs, smoothly casual. “Early enough. I couldn’t sleep.” And how could he, after so long, when his mind races with this new truth of his, this raw, open wound in his heart that Violet Lynch keeps prodding with less than gentle hands. What do you do after you find out you’re in love with your best friend? What do you say?

In Sargent’s case, it’s make them a sprawling breakfast spread. Violet tampers idly with the synthetic petals of a single yellow daisy Sargent nicked from downstairs, plunked into a tapered vase and placed upon one corner of a long, wooden tray. “I wanted to surprise you,” he admits, nodding to the empty breakfast tray with its single floral adornment. His cheeks pink at the admission as Violet blinks back at him. 

“Surprise me by waking the dead?” she drawls in affected boredom in desperate attempts to rein in the unexpected emotion bubbling up and coiling in her stomach. This is all sickeningly domestic, she sees it now. It was nothing. Last night was nothing. She just needed comfort and Sargent happened to be there. So why… “You do know you have all the subtlety of a herd of elephants.”

Sargent isn’t sure whether this is the time to panic or if this is what he wants- for her to see him; all of him, as he is; as he wants her. And he does want her. He wants what they had last night, every night, on better circumstances. He wants what they already have: long nights of earnest talk, watching each other with careful intent. The closeness of friendship, but mingled with something else, something bigger. 

“And your combative mood could be brightened with chocolate chip pancakes.” He brandishes a plate full of chocolate dotted pancakes with a flourish. 

“Man of my dreams…!” she exclaims, dripping sarcasm, her own particular brand of syrup to match his culinary treasures. She refuses to let him in on this big secret of hers. That he occupied her dreams last night, as he does every night, encompassing her every thought.

It’s always fields of purple flowers she dreams of, a calling home to her legendary creation story. She, the flowering gower, and he, the stars twinkling above. Never do they cross paths, the meeting of sky and earth. He’s a whole galaxy all on his own, and here she is, just a simple blossom, tied to one lonely planet. He can’t be reached, not from his lofty pedestal in swirling space, full of gas giants long since obliterated before they’re even seen by the naked eye. She’s a scattering of petals, _he loves me, he loves me not_ and she hates the farce for what it is. Something so big can’t possibly love something so small and fragile. 

Last night, she dreamt of him falling; crashing down to earth in a streak of mesmerising light. It’s the first time they’ve ever been introduced, in dreams. And it’s her field of violets he crash lands into, leaving a crater of devastation in his wake. But he’s small, smaller than she anticipated, after pieces of rock chipped away during the fall, leaving him a battered meteor in a sprawling bed of flowers. 

The blossoms swallow him up, a creeper of vines, tangling around rock, strategic, until the blast of light falls away, and all that’s left is a young man, etched with leafy spray, around wrist, and waist, and limbs… And her petals sketch themselves fingers, until they’re elegant hands, caressing this desperately human body, an angel’s fall. And there they are, two human souls, eclipsing one another in their closeness like never before.

If Violet wants him, she wants _all_ of him. No half-assed job full of maybes. She needs this to be true. Not an exploration of curiosities, or a path leading to someone else. It’s got to be _her and_ him, or nothing at all. 

“You didn’t wake everyone with your racket, did you?” she changes the subject to keep her heart in check, reaching for a strawberry from the bowl Sargent set down before her.

Sargent shrugs. “Everyone was already up, for the most part. Dad went to work, Mom’s downstairs, and I don’t even know if Indie came home last night…” Violet arches a brow, taking a bite out of her strawberry. He watches, rapt, as the juice oozes down her chin like vampire’s blood. And what he wouldn’t give to reach out and sweep the imperfection away with the gentle nudge of his thumb, or better yet, kiss it out of sight with tender lips kindled with newfound love. 

He leans over the bar for an extended moment, contemplating this very thing when Violet’s hand freezes on the stack of pancakes presented before her. He’d thought nothing of it when he deposited two upon his own plate, but her sharp intake of breath reels him back to reality and the whims of half-baked love-sick ideas. 

She stares it down, half-eaten strawberry forgotten on her plate. “Richard Campbell Gansey IV,” she breathes, voice thick with conflicting emotion, although overwhelmingly horrified in nature. “Have you _lost your motherfucking mind_?” 

And he’s not sure what to say to this, because he’s guilty guilty guilty guilty, damning evidence set out before him. Staring Violet in the face is one large pancake, chocolate chips baked right into the batter, emblazoned in carefully constructed lettering 

I  
LOVE  
YOU.

“Is this some sick joke?” she demands, pushing the plate away from herself, heart racing. _What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck?_ She’s suddenly not hungry anymore, finding herself parched for answers instead. 

"No," Sargent's voice is small, smaller than Violet ever thought possible. "No, I just..." He doesn't know what he just. All he knows is that he's full to bursting with this feeling, now that he knows it by name, and he can't keep it to himself. And he thought maybe...

"Sargent, I don't... I can't..." She rakes her fingers through her hair, unable to compehend any of this. This- all of this... This is not what Sargent does. He doesn't just wake up one morning and decide to make someone breakfast and declare his undying love for them by noon. It's not how this works. She doesn't even know how this is supposed to work, or even that there was something between them to work at all. But this isn't it. Love doesn't get to just fall into her lap one morning accompanied by fluffy pancakes and orange juice. 

Sargent fumbles, struggling with where to go from here. How to convince a cynic that she's capable of being loved? Of someone being in love with her? "Violet Lynch, I adore you," he pleads, hands clasped over the high table.

She skitters out of her chair. "Oh my god, you're not going to _propose_ are you?" She can't handle this right now. It's too much, too soon, and none of it makes any sense. Like her dreams grew a really sick sense of humour overnight... Like she's still fast asleep and this is all a horrible nightmare and she's going to wake up any minute to Sargent's guffawing laugh when she tells him what her dreams have thrown her this time. 

She pinches herself. Sargent's still there, looking at her with big, brown, sad eyes, rapidly becoming sadder by the second the more she deflects with disbelieving remarks. "Violet, _please_. You are amazing. And talented. And quick-witted. And funny. And terrifying as hell. And so _so_ beautiful-"

"No." Violet shakes her head vehemently back at him, won't stop shaking it. "You don't call me that." Because he knows how much she hates that. He of all people should know how much she hates being idolized. "You don't even know what you're saying..." Her breath heaves, a violent, rattling, up down of her chest.

"I know what I _feel_ ," Sargent replies stubbornly. And he'd thought... He'd been so sure... "I thought about it for a long time. And I know beyond a doubt. I'm in love with you, Violet."

Violet closes her eyes. This time, she may just cry in front of him, and she's so _sick_ of tears. "I don't..." She bites her lip, leaning over the countertop to mirror him almost exactly. "I don't know what to say..." 

"Then don't say anything." Sargent doesn't want her to say anything she'll regret. Because he knows now he's frightened her, and he doesn't want to see her run. "I just need this to be okay."

 _Nothing's_ okay. Everything's changed and Violet's world has been effectively rocked off its hinges. Just last night, she was told she was unwanted. And here she is, more wanted than she could ever imagine, by a boy who's hung the moon... "You're my best friend..." she swipes a fat tear from her cheek with a broad slash of her hand. Her lips tremble, alongside her shaking hands. "We grew up together. How am I supposed... You're practically my brother and I-"

Sargent backs off, stricken. "Your brother." He nods, wandering backwards into the depths of the kitchen. "That's..." He sucks in a breath. "That's... _fine_." This last word tears out of him, several octaves higher than his natural voice. His back digs right into the kitchen counter as he runs out of space to flee. 

"No, _Sarge_..." They've made a horrible mistake of things already, before it has begun. Violet doesn't know how to fix this. Here he was, doing a nice thing for her, because he cares, and that's what Sargent does. And she's fucked it up and pushed him away, because that's what _she_ does. "I don't know how to fucking love someone else, okay?" she blurts out, striking one more tear aggressively from her face. And there it is. Loving Sargent Gansey scares the hell out of her. Loving Sargent Gansey _back_ scares her even more. 

"I can love you and Indie like siblings, because that's what I know. That's what I've been _brought up_ to know. And if-" she takes a deep breath, preparing for the plunge. "-if I do this... I'm going to hurt you. I'm not someone you want to fall in love with, Sargent Gansey. I'm mean and spiteful and angry at _everything_..." She laughs a cold, empty laugh. "..and I like being alone."

Sargent's mouth drops open as if he's going to say his piece. Something tart about how these are all parts of her he fell in love with and how he'll take all the good with the bad... But she cuts him off. "But I like being alone... with _you_."

Sargent's head snaps up, an army boy to military attention. "So where do we go from here?" he asks her, easy does it, afraid to break the spell. 

Violet laughs, a real, desperate bark of a laugh this time. "I don't fucking know." She purses her lips, coming around the counter to meet him. "Let's start again. Hi, I'm Violet, and I'm hopelessly, desperately in love with you."

Sargent's laugh is tearful. He's still shaken from a rejection that could've been. "I'm Sargent. Hopelessly, _desperately_ in love with _you_." He takes her hand. She takes his. They shake on it, like some secret pact formed in treehouses of their youth. 

Violet's heart pounds with everything between them. All these heavy truths... His hand is still gripped in hers. Opportunity presents itself. She smirks the first hint of her ambush and tugs his arm hard, forcing him down to her level. Her free arm loops around his neck and her mouth... her mouth does something its never done before. Not even in dreams as it slams up against him, as brutal is if she planned to headbutt him instead, all smashing lips and clattering teeth. Her fingers tangle in his hair as they kiss. Violet's never felt anything so _charged_.

The lights flicker above them. And Cabeswater... Cabeswater feels it too, as vines of purple flowers wind around their joined wrists like a blessing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics in this chapter are all "Stars" from Les Miserables. *sniffs*
> 
> I give some of you full permission to end it here if you want, because from here on out, it's gonna be angst-central as the plot and conflict shoots into high gear... you have been warned. (But please stay and comment, because it's gonna be a fun ride, I swear!)


	11. New Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast in bed is a lot more appealing than Violet expected...

I.

Violet gets breakfast in bed after all, just like Sargent wanted, surprise or no. They share a plateful of his late morning fry-up, all cooked to perfection, no thanks to Blue and Ronan’s diligent teachings. The tray sits on two hinged legs in the middle of their bed, where they set out their spread, picnic style, as if they share this first date of theirs in the middle of Cabeswater, embraced by trees and the chirp of birds…

Perpetually camera shy and self-conscious, Violet staunchly refuses to let him take pictures of her from his phone. He settles for beaming, open-mouthed and laughing, over his spread, two thumbs up hovering above his _I love you_ pancakes -a photo he’ll later post on Instagram captioned with the words “she said yes!!!” and Violet’s sardonic reply of, “it’s only love, it’s not like we’re getting married.” But for now, they steal kisses chasing up raspberries, strawberries, and chocolate chips and she laughs, heart full to bursting for the first time in her life, while he says the things he’s always wanted to say to put that smile on her face and keep it there.

She’s so happy. So _god damned_ happy, she knows if she saw herself, she’d want to projectile vomit and say nasty words about things never lasting in the fallout. But this is her life, and he’s here, and this is happening. And his hands are all over her body, all the time, burning her up from the inside out. She’s a fire set alight, bonfire expanded into the sky in smoke and flame, an S.O.S. to the world she secretly doesn’t want to be found by civilization. His hands are warm on her long, slender neck, tipped to one side to be kissed down her shoulders, splintering down her spine… He explores her like he’s never had opportunity before: all these new places of hers that scream out _Violet Lynch_ and he is hers, ripe for the taking, her body trusted in his careful hands. He buries his face in her hair and breathes deep, and she smells floral, like roses and hyacinths, ever the flower Cabeswater insists she is.

She is no one’s possession, and nor will she ever fit perfectly in his grasp, without wanting to flee from the vulnerability that comes with intimacy, but she can see now how her parents fought so hard to be _kept._ She jokes plenty, but she knows if Sarge asked her today, right now, she would run away with him and never look back, the pair of them against the world, blotting out the sun and starting afresh with a blank canvas on their horizon.

So this is what love is…

They set the tray aside, stuffed from their feast and he leans her against pillows to nip at that secret place behind her ear, often hidden by a mass of curls. She finds she’s ticklish and giggles, an uncontainable thing as she swats him away to no avail, his own laughter tattooed on her skin. She thinks she could get him inked there, a clandestine SG, just for them. No one has to know.

Sargent’s fingers dig into her ribs, burrowing deep, as if tunneling to reach her heart. But he doesn’t know that he’s already found it, and holds it in his hand even now and it beats, oh how it beats, just for him…

She can hear him breathing, in sharp, heavy clips, like he can’t quite believe his luck and he has to have everything at once before it’s all snatched away. So she quiets him with her own mouth and they share breath, gasped between two lungs each as she kisses him and kisses him and kisses him… And keeps kissing him until there's no breath left to cling to. So they cling to each other instead, a feet-first dive into unknown waters.

The tip of his nose traces her jawline and she shivers under his touch. God, and isn’t he gorgeous, this beautiful beautiful thing. Does he know just how handsome he is, languid and carefree? That his eyes, chocolate coated and rich rich rich down to their core are molten enough to drown in- a Willy Wonka death trap all on their own? Cavities. He’s going to give her cavities if he doesn’t stop. One day, she won’t forgive him for the toothache, but for now, she’s happy to kiss and kiss and kiss… and…

The door flies open with a bang. They spring apart, still clinging from hip to chest as if glued there. “Oh my _god_ it’s about time you guys got a _room_!” Indie’s voice rings out, chipper from the doorway, back from her latest early morning gallivanting. She grins knowingly at them both as they shimmy up into a seated position, leaned up against the headboard. Still clinging like they’ve been caught doing much worse. Sargent can do nothing about it but bury his face in the base of her throat and laugh into her sweet-scented curls, lips still unbelievably on her skin. “Ok, lovesick _nerds_. Mom wants us downstairs for lessons, pronto.”

“Indie…” Violet warns from the bed, unable to untangle herself from Sargent’s pawing hands. She tries to swipe him away. “I swear to god, Indie. I will _get_ you.”

“I’d like to see you try with vampire boy attached to your neck,” Indie challenges, entirely too amused for her own good.

This… this is far too much. With a rough shove, she splits herself from her newfound lover and trudges across the room before the tiny cretan can escape. Indie lets out an indignant squeal as Violet heaves her over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Sarge, I do believe we’re needed downstairs,” she muses. “I’ve got to take the trash out on my way.”

Sargent gives a goodnatured salute, beaming all the while and watches his favourite two people leave, punctuated by Indie’s spontaneously off-key squawks of “can you feel the looooove tonight?” and Violet's fluent swearing. He doesn’t know how he got so lucky to have two such ridiculous human beings brightening his life but he doesn’t think he’d ever trade them for the world.

II.

As a mother, Blue Sargent finds she notices a great many things. One or two being that all three of the teens in her household are acting _very strange_. Stranger than _usual_ , she should say. Her son, perpetual snorer into the mattress until noon, was up at six this morning, _cooking and_ singing his little heart out. And after taking care of Violet the previous night, there's no way that's a coincidence. Blue knows. She knows whatever is keeping the dam up between them is going to come crashing down soon enough (if it hasn't already).

And Indie, darling little girl, has always been fiercely independent. Blue knows that. As close as her daughter is to her brother and Violet, she likes her quality time apart. But not _this_ much quality time. She's _seen_. She's seen with her own eyes, the androgenous Aglionby student who wanders into her shop often enough. She's seen the way they've rummaged up their courage to step right up to Indie and talk to her, only to back away at the last second. It's a dance she's watched them do for months now, with no real results. But now with her daughter gone at all hours of the night (and early this morning), she suspects something's _finally_ happened.

Blue's not one to meddle in her children's lives. She's not one to dictate or tell them what to do and when to do it. And maybe it's a good thing both Sargent and Indie stepped into the dating game at the same time. Exchanging notes about romance seems a far easier conversation than anything she or Gansey could come up with... which reminds her...

Gansey.

Unlike Blue, Gansey hasn't a fucking clue. About anything, per usual. It's classic Gansey really. He hadn't a clue about Noah the friendly ghost, assimilating himself into his and Ronan's lives before either of them could even question it... He hadn't a clue about Ronan and Adam when they first got together... And now... Blue suspects he wouldn't even notice the not-so-subtle game of footsy his son and his best friends' daughter are currently playing under the table. Nor would he notice how boys are the _last_ thing on his daughter's mind as she sets her sights on more gender-neutral territory.

Would he notice the way Violet laughs, carefree, and only occasionally biting with sarcasm? Would he notice the way Sargent's thumb traces over the back of Violet's hand as it lingers there after reaching for the same cookie? Would he notice the way Indie leaves the instant lessons are over, three p.m. sharp, and dashes out on her bike, doubtless into the waiting arms of Aglionby Academy?

Blue doubts it.

Which is going to make this doubly hard when she has to spell it out for him. One bit at a time. But extraordinarily, tonight, Gansey isn't the first of her boys to come home to her. Tonight, Adam beats him to the punch. She's relieved to see him trying so hard lately. She knows now (has known for a while) that he and Ronan are struggling. And after last night they have a lot of work to do.

Adam didn't stop by last night, though he sure as hell wanted to. Dealing with Violet's rebellion and subsequent magical break, alongside Ronan's latest explosion, was already too much for them to handle. It took Gansey three hours to talk Ronan down, having wrestled him into the family mini-van and taken him god knows where- anywhere away from _here_. And Gansey is tired of this. Tired of having to babysit Adam and Ronan through each and every one of their fights, which keep coming and coming and coming, like some gruesome labour that will only bear fruit to something ghastly if they don't get their shit together soon.

But here Adam is, trying his hardest to do right by his daughter.

He comes with a plan, lips sealed shut tight in a grim line. Adam Lynch means business. He doesn't bother with pleasantries. He shucks his shoes off at the door and beckons his wayward daughter over with a stern, "Violet, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Violet frowns, knowing full well she's not about to get away with the stunt she pulled last night. Still, it's not Ronan's wrath she's facing after stealing the _BMW_ of all things. And knowing Sargent's there, close at hand, and prepared for emergency comfort, lulls her into a calm submission. Only mildly tinged with nerves.

She plunks down on the couch beside him, turned to the side so they might talk face to face. Adam's hands fall to his lap, an identical spread to his daughter's settled in her own lap, each as elegant as the other. "Violet," he sighs, and already knows this is going to be a hard conversation to muster. "I know your dad and I usually come to stay at Monmouth during the week. But this week... this week, we have to stay at The Barns."

Violet's brow furrows deeper, a worried v, bullseyed between her eyes. She was expecting a harsh reprimand, not this... "Ok...?"

"Here's the thing. We can't have you there with us. It's too much and too hard-"

"Wait." Violet blinks, taking a moment to let these words sink in. "Are you- are you _serious_? After what Daddy said last night, you're telling me it's too _hard_?" And here her parents go, choosing each other over her... She always knew it was a matter of time. It was always going to be Adam and Ronan or Ronan and Violet in the end. She knows that. " _You're_ taking his side!"

She leaps from the couch to Adam's profuse protestations. "No, Violet. _Listen_ me." He knows whatever he says will go right through her. She's just as stubborn as Ronan and she'll use his words against him in a heartbeat. "Last night... last night was _nothing_. Ronan _loves_ you, honey. He does. He said those things because he was angry and he's afraid of losing you. Not because you would ever _ever_ deserve to die."

Violet crosses her arms over her chest, indignant teen. "We're all gonna die eventually," she huffs, staring down at her feet.

"Vi," Adam sighs, so so weary of all of this. He's received enough of this, plus a bountiful supply of silence from Ronan at home as it is. "Don't smartmouth me right now." He catches her sneer and rolled eyes anyway. _Petulant_ teen. "Ronan should never have said those things."

"And he's sorry he got _caught_ , I bet," Vi bites back, all coiled adder. "That's what you say behind my back all the time, isn't it? You-you wish I'd never been born so that you could just get on with your lives instead of sticking around for my benefit and fighting all the time. I know. I hear the way you argue, Dad. You're not subtle. You're _never_ subtle. And- and every fucking time, you raise your voices louder and louder, I'm scared one of you is going to leave and just... never come back." Violet's voice is in fact raising louder and louder, picking up in pitch as she becomes more hysterical with the terrifying truth that weighs her down at night. "God, some days, Dad, I wonder why you don't just... leave."

Adam's thought about it, he can't deny it. He has. But Ronan made a promise when they first started dating those many years ago. He told him he would never hurt him the way his father did. And Adam believed him. He implicitly trusted Ronan Lynch not to be the man his father was. He trusted him to be gentle, and kind, and good to not only him, but to their daughter too. And he's kept his end of the bargain. Because a Lynch never lies. Loyal to the end. And it's this that helps Adam see this marriage through.

But lately... Lately, Ronan's lost, and Adam worries he won't be able to find him again. "Violet, I love your father very much. He and you are the best things that have ever happened to me. I couldn't be luckier to have you both."

He staunchly ignores the "your luck is running out" that rolls off his sullen daughter's tongue under her breath.

"We can't have you home, at The Barns right now because there are things Ronan and I need to figure out. Together."

"You just don't want me walking in on you fighting again!" No, she's right. He doesn't. Adam doesn't want to suffer another repeat of last night, if he can help it. It's too hard, having Violet involved in all of this. Nor does she deserve to see the ugliest side of their marriage. She doesn't need to know that whatever's going on with Ronan could go tits up. And honestly, Adam doesn't want to believe it either. He'd rather live vicariously through his daughter's blissful ignorance than face a failing marriage.

But Ronan... Ronan is a mess and Adam has to see this through. For the both of them _and_ for Violet.

"Just... spend some quality time with the Ganseys." Violet snorts back a cynical laugh. She's never heard a more redundant demand in her life. "We'll have you back home in no time."

"Fine," Violet relents, tipping her head back impatiently. "I'll stay. But only because I'd be here anyway and the Ganseys seem to appreciate me more right now than the both of you put together."

"Violet," Adam sighs, although he knows very well that it's no use arguing with her. He's got what he wanted. He can leave her to stew in peace, in an environment far more healthy for her than The Barns. And Gansey and Blue will take care of her. They will. Which just leaves him and Ronan, alone with this problem between them, growing more vast by the second.

He's not prepared for the fallout. Not by a longshot.


	12. Kindred Spirits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Indie knows how to take care of her favourite girl...

Indie finds Violet sulking in the living room easy chair, thumbnail pressed to her mouth as she thinks those deep thoughts only broody dream girls do. Such a creature of habit, this one. There’s something vaguely vampyric about her. Twilight breaks and down she goes, hunkering down into her nightly contemplations, not to be disturbed, lest you want a chunk taken out of your neck.  Indie can never imagine descending into such a state. She doesn’t know what it means to be melancholic, depressive, just generally _sad_. It’s as if when Violet was born, she paved the way for the sadness her young friend would feel one day. And when Indie shot into the world seven months behind her, there was no sadness to be felt. Violet swallowed up as much of it as she could, so Indie didn’t have to.

That’s not how either of their magic works, and she knows it. But it’s a nice thought, imagining Violet Lynch doing something _nice_ for someone she loves. Indie knows what she’s capable of. She may be this grim, angry girl who can throw a punch at anyone willing to challenge her, but Indie knows deep down in there somewhere is a heart of gold. Hell, her big brother wouldn’t be so head over heels for her if there wasn’t.

“Why the long face, babycakes?” she croons at her perpetually woeful friend. She’s far too close for Violet’s comfort, close enough that she could very well risk losing a limb or two, but she’s willing to take a gamble tonight.

“Go away, Indie,” Violet bites back at her without budging a single inch from her position. Her gaze falls unfocused on the floor at an angle, not even looking. So that’s how it is then.

“Where’s Sargent? I half expected you guys to be off being nauseatingly cheerful together or something.” That _is_ what couples do, right? After all, that’s what she and Sam have been doing, at any hour they can get. Early mornings before school on Sam’s bed, watching stupid YouTube videos on their laptop… After Sam’s final classes for the day, hunkered down on a tire swing, whirling away, their own two-person populated planet, rotating on its axis… Long into evenings until the yawns start slipping in and it’s time for bed… How could Sarge and Vi not want to spend every waking moment together? She’s only just left Sam, and already her heart feels a keen tug, a desperate calling back to where she belongs.

“He’s doing math homework,” Violet murmurs, far too matter-of-factly for someone in a new relationship with a boy she’s only been mooning over for years.

“Is this what it’s going to be like with you two?” Indie inquires dubiously. “You get all goopy and canoodly in the mornings and afternoons, and in the evenings you turn into the ice queen and freeze him out? All Jekyll and Hyde?”

Violet lets out an overly dramatic sigh, finally turning to address her. _Woe is me…_ “Indie, it’s none of your business what we’re like. He just needed some space to do homework and I needed-“

“Space to think,” Indie concludes for her with a wave of her hand. “Yeah, yeah. I got it. But have you ever thought…” The smallest of the Sargents grows bold and grips one arm of the chair to heft herself up behind her friend. “…that maybe it’s good to open up to people every so often?”

When Violet doesn’t try to buck her off like a raging bull, she settles, pulling her knees up to press on either side of Violet’s back. Her fingers find safe mooring on Violet’s shoulders and begin working their magic.

Violet Lynch is the most tense person Indie’s ever met. Even when she’s relaxed, she’s all stiff shoulders and rigid back. All regimental, an army girl prepared for a fight. Slap cammo and war paint on her and she’s good to go. She’s a tough nut to crack. Violet only opens up to one person. Indie knows her deepest secrets aren’t for her. She isn’t her brother after all. She may share his brown eyes and general facial structure and occasionally quirky fashion sense, but Indie knows she’s a far cry from Sargent and Vi will never be frank with her like she is with him. But she can sure as hell try…

“Come on,” she coaxes, pulling out her devastatingly charming pout. “Tell me. What’s up, buttercup?”

Violet coughs, deliberately crushing her shoulderblades against Indie and shifting, just enough to let her know she’s annoyed, but without the assertion that she wants her to stop. Indie’s arms wind their way around her instead and squeeze, their cheeks pressed intimately close. “Is this how you flirt with _all_ the girls?” Violet teases, deadpan, making no move to squirm out of her grip.

Indie’s limbs retract from her friend’s body as if scalded. “What?”

Violet frowns, shifting this time in discomfort, knowing she’s struck some sort of chord. She turns her head, but it’s not enough to look her in the eye. “Indie, is there something going on with you?” she asks. And oh, Violet Lynch may not be a people-person, but she’s intuitive as hell.

By _something_ , she means Sam. She just doesn’t know it yet. Indie’s cast back to mere hours before regardless. To a simple gesture that came about utterly accidentally. The slightest brush of hand against chest. She didn’t mean it. But Sam, in their crisp, ironed white dress shirt, unbuttoned three rows down, enough to show something off, takes it as an opportunity. They’re lying in the grass, park empty, save for them. Indie’s body has been doing complicated things all day. Seeing Sam that morning in their tight blouse and pleated skirt, hair cropped short like a boy’s beneath a slouchy knitted hat… it’s a stirring she’s not familiar with. She tingles with it, an infernal buzz that won’t leave her, even hours after her first glance and most recent goodbyes with this person of hers, transcending everything she’s ever known. 

“It’s okay,” Sam coaxes her, reaching out to hold Indie’s hand reverently in theirs. Her cheeks burn with the unexpected touch, but they guide her on newfound legs to that spot. They don’t place it there, her hand. Sam lets her make that decision all on her own, stopping at a mere hover, to offer a multiple choice.

Indie’s heart flutters, her mind racing with all these ideas about gender her mother tried to gently beat out of her from the earliest age possible. Skirts aren’t girly. Breasts aren’t girly. It’s nothing really. It’s human mechanics. They both happen to have them. Indie knows what a breast feels like, cupped in her hands… She just never thought… Never imagined…

But here they are, and Sam offers so nicely, so patiently, and Indie’s learning and this is… this is _exciting_. Indie leans in and kisses them. _Nicely_. And lets her palm nestle there, in that forbidden place she fears no more. Here she is, Indie Sargent, tackling the unknown. Valiant efforts all around.

Sam’s sigh is breathless beneath her mouth. A little giggle bubbles up between them both, awkward, but relieved. “Feel better?” Sam asks her, having gotten that out of the way.

Indie feels like she’s taken a running leap at something big, and needs time to evaluate. But her hand hasn’t moved from that soft spot, fingers curled around the underwire of a bra.

There’s nothing feminine about Sam, Indie realizes with a start. Nothing feminine, nothing inherently masculine either. Just… _them_. And not even a breast cupped in hand could persuade her otherwise. She knows gender cannot touch them, not with the impervious walls they’ve build up against malicious intruders.

Indie tucks a long lock of teal hair over her shoulder and reaches for Sam’s hand, feeling slightly foolish. One thing at a time… Here comes reciprocation. She clears her throat, unaware of how she’s supposed to hold herself in such a situation, and presses her chest out, shoulders back, letting her body give permission she’s too embarrassed to give through words. _I want you to_.

Sam’s palm settles there, gentle around something barely there. But Indie wants them to know they can, unremarkable cup-size or no. They’re funny, these two, navigating around what it means to like one another, regardless of what and who their bodies say they are. Their fleshly vessels mean nothing, when the souls inside are pure and wanting, and happy to be, side by side in their discoveries. 

It doesn’t matter. None of it does. Not when Indie Sargent has found a little drop of heaven, here on Earth, with this kindred spirit of hers.

She shakes herself out of it, suddenly lightheaded at the all-too-recent memory. Violet’s aggressively feminine body presses heavy above her and things begin to shift, rearranging themselves in Indie’s mind and heart. _What does this mean?_ She lets out a breath, careful not to touch Violet while she’s still so heady with these clandestine thoughts of hers. “I’m seeing someone,” she admits, swiftly, partially hoping Violet wouldn’t hear at all.

Violet frowns again. “What? A _girl_?” If Indie’s dating girls now, this is the first Violet’s heard of it. _Does Sargent know?_

Indie bites her lip. “No…”

“A _boy_?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Then Indie, what…”

“It’s… a person. I have a _person_ , okay?” She hopes beyond all hope Violet accepts this for what it is. She’s placed a dangerous wager, trusting Violet Lynch first with this big secret of hers.

“What… If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to say.” Indie can feel the tense set of Violet’s frustration practically on top of her, this charged thing.

“No, that’s not what I’m _saying_ …” She doesn’t know how to explain it in a way Violet will understand. “They don’t identify as _anything_.”

“So they’re just… nothing.” Violet sounds displeased with this answer, like it’s not quite adequate for this expansive thing they’re trying to pinpoint.

“Or both.” Indie shrugs. She’s not quite certain of the parameters of how being gender queer works. Those are questions for later, when she’s more comfortable asking without waiting for permission.

“So… what does that make you?” Violet inquires, all practical, down to business. Right down to the heart of the matter. Good. Just what Indie needed. Trusty Vi to the rescue.

“One very confused girl.”

“Doesn’t that just make the two of us,” Violet observes, utterly unironic. “ _Life_ is so fucking confusing.”

Indie winds her arms back around Violet’s shoulders, holding her close, and this time not letting her go. Her face presses into her neck, that secret place her brother admires so much. She presses a simple kiss there, not a big to do, just a quick, affectionate peck full of gratitude. Violet leans back into it, her head turned toward her. She gathers up Indie’s face in her hand, an awkward angle, but manages to twist enough between them so she might press a returning kiss to her hair, a practical mother’s touch to temple, fingers stroking soft blue strands in reassurance. Indie squeezes her extra tight, one more thank you for being _there_.

“You better not be stealing my girlfriend away from me,” comes Sargent’s voice from just around the corner, lighthearted and teasing. He’s smiling over at them both, curled up in the easy chair.

Violet lets out a tut to inform him how ridiculous he sounds. “I’m no one’s anything, _Sarge_.” But she gathers herself up to climb out of the chair anyway, all long limbs tangled with a tiny hitchhiker reluctant to let her go. Indie falls back into the chair anyway, leaving her to her man.

She goes to him, pressing herself close under one lanky arm that gathers her up without second questions. The way they gaze at one another now is no way any two people should gaze at each other in public. Star-crossed and googly. They should be arrested on the spot for indecent affection. A shared lovers’ gaze. Lucky them.

Indie clears her throat. “Hey, Sarge. Didn’t you come up here to _do something_?”

“Hmm what?” he asks, distracted. Still gazing.

“The _thing_ ,” she insists, exasperated. “Tell me you did _the thing_.”

“What? Oh, yes. I did the thing.”

“You two are being awfully secretive…” Violet notes, clearly more aware of her surroundings than lover boy over here.

“Well, yes. I was holding you hostage for a _reason_ ,” Indie simpers, a mischievous grin tipping at the corners of her lips.

“What dastardly deed have you two been plotting against me?” Violet dares ask.

“Something good, I promise,” Sargent hints at a whisper, pressed in close to her ear. Arms circle her waist, synching her to him. She lets out a little _oh_ and turns to wrap her arms around his neck.

She’s softer in Sargent’s hands. More open than Indie’s ever seen her. _Happy_. Nauseatingly so. _Who_ is this sweet tempered girl and where did she come from? Sprung from the sea, a veritable Venus, no doubt. Goddess of love is hardly a title befitting of such a hard-hearted queen. But Indie’s her Eros, springing arrows at newfound lovers, watching romance bloom beneath nurturing hands. A gentle nudge and _here’s my calling card_.

Indie doesn’t know how much of this display of affection is all under her influence or if it’s all them, too far gone to notice any attempts at interference.

Sargent leads her downstairs, hands on her shoulders, to keep her from running should she change her mind. (Violet Lynch notoriously flees from surprises sprung out of nowhere.)

Down in Blue Lily, shop closed for the night, the shelves have been pushed against walls, leaving a vast empty space. The lights dim under Indie’s fingertips from the stairway, and up pops a spectrum of colour, dotting the ceiling, walls, and floor, from a spinning disco ball above.

Violet wrinkles her brow, turning to the Sargent-Gansey siblings both for answers. Blue and Noah stand, leaning against the far wall, next to a sound system drudged up for the occasional yoga workshops. Noah waves serenely from beside a docked ipod, twisting to press play. Blue winks from beside him as a song worthy of a John Hughes movie blasts, reverberating around the room.

“We know you’re going through some rough times, so we thought…” Sargent begins, reaching up to ruffle his hair from the back, innocently guilty. “It was Indie’s idea, actually.”

“ _What_ was Indie’s idea, actually?”

Indie beams, rushing into the wide open space, arms flung out in gesticulation. “Dance party for our broody kitten, of course!” she exclaims, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Sargent nods vigorously, his broad shoulders already doing a ridiculous little wiggle in time to the music on their own volition. He never could resist a good beat.

“What? You _guys_!” Violet huffs a breath, only partially surprised and annoyed they’d spring something so silly and spontaneous on her like this.

“You guys nothing.” Sargent beams.

“Come _dance_!” Indie beckons her to her with come hither fingers, challenge all over her expressive little face. Violet hesitates for far too long. Long enough that Indie has to physically drag her onto the dance floor, hands pressed to hands. They do an awkward heave-ho for an extended moment before Violet’s stern control over her emotions breaks and she laughs at the absurdity of it all, head tipped back and grinning.

She throws her arms up and lets the music take her, swaying on the spot until Sargent joins her, arms back around her waist. She whirls, almost headbutting him as he buries his face in her hair. He shakes the clumsy collision off with a carefree laugh and they dance, caution flung to the wind.

And this is _precisely_ where she should be, goofing off with her friends, instead of losing herself to worst-case scenarios all pent up in that brilliant, overthinking mind of hers.

Noah foxtrots Indie across the room to the most upbeat song imaginable, before leaving her to the mercy of her doubly left footed brother, and rejoins Blue some time later in the evening. “ _So_ …? Whaddya think?” he prods her teasingly, slumping into a wooden chair beside her.

“I think… Mini Ronan and Mini Gansey have finally broken some of that sexual tension brewing between them,” Blue replies, her keen motherly eye seeing all. What she sees now is two smitten teens, wrapped up in one another, wound right down with a slow song playing above them. And if Sargent notices his mother is still in the room, he cares not one whit as he kisses this girl Blue has seen him pine after so blindly for years. He may not have known it then, but he does now, and that’s all that matters.

“Are _you_ okay though?” Noah asks, all-knowing of a different sort. His cold hand envelopes hers across the small, round end table between them.

“Perfectly,” she replies, squeezing his hand beneath her fingers, gaze still utterly dedicated to her children, out there, having the time of their lives, first loves and all. “It’s Gansey I’m worried about.”

“Big Gansey and Big Ronan?” Noah hazards a guess.

Blue manages a small, sad smile back at him. “Yes. The both of them.”

“Gansey will be fine,” Noah assures her. “He’ll be just fine.”

Blue recognizes his distinct neglect of Ronan and accepts it for what it is. She doesn’t want to get into it tonight. Not when the kids are having _fun._ Tomorrow is another day. They can deal with it then.

In the meantime, Blue gives up her mothering duties for the evening and hauls Noah back up out of his chair and onto the dance floor. She can’t let these crazy teens of hers have _all_ the fun.

The three of them laugh as their single chaperone and resident ghost join the din. And for once in what could be a very long time, they’re all deliriously happy, the troubles of the world cast off from their shoulders.

If only for tonight…


	13. Rattling Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violet's mind is a terrifying place...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, and welcome to the soul-crushing angst pit that is Violet Lynch's brain... please take a deep breath before reading and enjoy the ride. :)

Violet’s mind wanders, as it always does, to that unreachable place that haunts the periphery of her very existence. Her friends’ efforts are kind, and well-meaning. And for a few hours, her worries evaporate under a spinning disco ball, a kaleidoscope of light matching her every move, arms lifted overhead, hips shifting in a sensual tilt, side to side. Sarge won’t keep his hands off her, and Violet wants to keep them there, a weighty reminder that everything is okay; _going to_ be okay. Everything is rosy under Sargent’s lingering hands, as he pulls her close and kisses her neck and whispers words of encouragement, fingers tangling in her hair. She’s radiant beneath these hands. He makes her weak in the knees, her whole body thrumming with a desire she never thought herself capable of feeling for another human being.

She doesn’t want this feeling to end. She wants to hold his face in her hands and kiss him into oblivion, fingers sliding down the fine charcoal lines of his jaw, exaggerated by the evening’s shadows. She wants his hands to stay, right there, on the small of her back as she worships him like she’s only been able to before with lingering glances and sarcastic statements that have always, _always_ meant _I love you_ beneath their sharp sting.

A second away from him, and it’ll all come crumbling down. Her mind is an unpredictable thing, chasing demons too far out of her reach. It’s a useless endeavor, when there’s always one more thing to worry about. One more ounce of self-doubt. Sargent loves her, she knows that. She _knows_ it. She would have been able to tell anyone that, even before he made his returning affections for her known. He loved her then, he loves her now. It’s just… _bigger_ than it once was. Friends to lovers, just like that. And even though she knows, a small part of her still worries for the boy he’ll become the instant he turns his back.

She reaches out, brushing palm to vertebrae as he leaves to get them a drink. He turns his head, mouth twisted in a laugh drowned out by the music. And if she’s too clinging, too codependent to bear letting him out of her sight, he doesn’t mind, throwing an arm around her shoulders, a silent acquiescence _. Of course we’ll tackle the world together_. One glass half full at a time.

Violet’s glass is half empty, perpetually. She can keep filling it and filling it and filling it, but its contents will still drop out of the bottom every time. What punishment has she wrought, this falsely accused Tantalus? She’s so starved for happiness she just can’t reach, and parched for certainty she’s never quite known. It’s all there, right in front of her. All she has to do is grab it, keep it there, in her sights. But her fate taunts her, tugging it all out of her outreaching grasp before she can even touch it.

So she keeps Sargent close, afraid he’ll disappear, out from the bottom of her glass, like Ronan… like Adam… like many more people in her life when karma’s through with her.

She can feel the panic bubbling up inside her as the night progresses, a heavy weight pressing down against her chest. _Don’t leave don’t leave don’t leave don’t leave_. Her parents’ words echo in her head.

  _Maybe that’s what I want. A clean break._

_It’s too hard._

_It’s too hard it’s too hard its too hard._

_You’re going to kill her._

_Maybe that’s what I want…_

They don’t want her. Maybe they never wanted her. Maybe her whole life is a lie, and her father pulled her out of his dreams by total coincidence. Was Zeus full of intent when he pulled Athena out of his head, fully formed? Or was he full of regrets too, for his daughter, overripe with unbearable thoughts?

Sargent’s wandered off to the bathroom for five minutes, and she can’t breathe. The walls cave in and this thing on her chest won’t leave, instead pressing down harder, ten more kilos added to the stack. She collapses on their bed, door locked and heaves a rattling breath, spluttered from her throat, squeezed too tight.

It’s too hard and her chest is too tight and it’s too hard and her heart is pounding, at a clip too fast to control, and it’s too hard, and she can’t breathe, can’t breathe can’t breathe.

It’s too damn fucking _hard_.

“Violet?” Sargent’s voice rings out from the other side of the door, concerned, rightly so. This door is never locked: an open space for the three of them to come and go as they please.

She tries to control her laboured breathing with no success. It comes in a staggered, uneven staccato mess, mouth gasping for air between clenched teeth.

“Vi?” Can he hear her through the door, she wonders. Can he fix this like a magician’s trick, just like that? “Violet, please unlock the door.” She can practically hear him, palm pressed flat against wood, a silent plea.

She takes a deep breath. And releases. By some miracle, her legs carry her to the door, and she releases the lock with a click, hands trembling too much to get it right the first couple tries.

“Hey.” There’s that silky, reverent word again, a gentle reminder: _you’re so wanted, Violet Lynch_. “Hey, Vi… what-?” Sargent doesn’t have time to finish his thought as he gets an eyeful of what the hell’s been going on in here, and inside her head. She’s crawled on her belly back to square one, this landmine of a girl.

She collapses, a dead weight into his waiting arms, her own arms thrown around his neck without second thought. He can’t tell if she’s crying or if it’s just her breath, running a triathlon, all three segments overlapped one on top of the other, on top of the other.

The room spins, and the smell of him, all boy, all _Sargent_ , makes her dizzy. A blustering wind punches at a window will a bang. Sargent all but ignores it as he leads her back onto the bed, a repeat of last night, all over again.

At least she doesn’t have the breath for unexpected Latin right now… no spinning heads, no demonic possession. Just blind panic at the face of uncertainty.

“Hey. Hey hey hey…” He has her propped up against the headboard, fingers smoothing the worry lines from her brow and swiping the tears from her cheeks. She’s trembling, head to toe and he’s never seen her so shaken up before. He swallows back the lump in his throat. He can do this. “Violet, look at me.” Her gaze reaches for him without seeing. “Hi. _There_ you go. You’re going to be okay.”

The wind outside rocks this concrete factory of theirs, as if intending to rip it from its roots and carry it off into the wilderness. We’re not in Kansas anymore… Cabeswater whispers urgently in his ear, but he’s beyond understanding. He doesn’t speak its language. That’s Violet’s expertise.

He holds her through it, hands stroking her face, stroking her hair, stroking her back. His chin presses to the top of her head and her fingers curl, tight around his shirt, never letting go.

When her breathing’s settled to something resembling normalcy, she kisses him, as way of thanks, stealing his breath to speed up the healing process. He doesn’t mind. There’s plenty more where that came from…

Except she keeps going, different than it was this morning, different than it’s ever been. This is urgency. This is an infernal _need_ , pulled deep from her soul. And she tugs at him, and pulls him down, until _she’s_ above him, and _she’s_ in control. He gazes up at her, surprised at where they were, where they’ve been, and where they are now. Who _is_ this girl? He doesn’t recognize the storm in her eyes. The one that rages, but stands out black as night, black as a bottomless void as she searches for something in him she can’t quite name.

_What do you want, Violet? What do you need?_

Her hands slip cold under his shirt, nails clawed down his back. Still kissing. Still touching. And she’s straddling him and this is… This is…

This is not what he wants. This is not what either of them are ready for.

“V-Violet,” he tries, her name choked out of him as she tries to wrench him from his shirt. “Violet, stop stop stop. _Stop_.”

 She has to be shoved, grabbed by the shoulders, face taken between his two hands to shake her out of it. “This is too much,” he admits, heart racing. “This is not what you want.”

“Yes it is.” Her words peel out of her like a plea, a desperate need to be understood by the only person who can. “ _Yes it is_!”

“Violet, it’s only been a day.” He worries his reasoning won’t reach her like it should; like it would in any other occasion when she’s not so hopped up on her latest tail chase. She’s running in circles again. One of these days she’s going to run right out of steam.

“But we’ve known each other _forever_ ,” comes her rebuttal, hands still roving for him in places he’s not ready to be touched. “Forever _and a day_ , Sargent. _Please_ … I need- I need to be close to you. I need to be close to _someone_.”

And there it is. Everything’s so clear now, what this is all about. “And you _can_. You _can_ be close to me,” he concedes, his fingers running a vertical streak from cheek to temple and disappearing into her hair, soothing it out of her eyes. “You’re already close to me. You’re closer to me now than you’ve ever been. Violet, I’m not going _anywhere_.” Sargent suspects the type of closeness Violet’s after is the crawl under your skin kind of closeness, and he can’t give that to her, even if he wanted to. All he can do is make a promise, make a vow, and hope to god she believes him when he says it.

“I promise, I will never leave you,” he insists, meaning every word of it. “Do you hear me? I _promise_ you. You are everything I could ever want and more. And anyone who thinks you’re not worthy of their time or energy is a fool. Right? They’re a _fool,_ Violet Lynch, not to see what they’re missing.”

He presses up against her, as close as he’s willing: forehead to temple, and takes the moment to listen to her breathing, mingled with his own. It’s still strained, choked up with tears, but the rush of panic is already subsiding. “I love you. Okay? I love you and that’s never going to change.”

They’re moving too fast… He’s only just figured out what he wants, that he wants _her_ , and that he can _have_ her. And these panic attacks? These panic attacks are nothing. They can deal with this together. Ride the wave until it crests, evening out onto the sandy shore, leaving nothing but fine, frothy foam and the smoothed pebbles its washed up with it. He can handle this. But she’s volatile. She’s known it from the off, warned him this morning. God, _this_ _morning_. It feels like an eternity, he’s been with her. But not even 24 hours and he’s offering her the world on a silver platter, nothing short of what she _deserves_.

Because if there’s one thing Sargent Gansey’s learned, it’s that he’d walk to the ends of the Earth for her. Drop down from heaven for her, if it meant keeping her happy and safe. He would’ve done it before, without all the muddling love does to his brain. He would’ve stripped the stars from the galaxy for Violet Lynch, his best friend. And he’d paint every last painstaking detail back into the sky for Violet Lynch, his truest love. It’s sappy, and deserving of a Violet Lynch patented sucker punch to the gut, but it is what it is.

They’re both hurtling into oblivion, voluntarily surpassing the speed limit by the hundreds, but it’s all worth the risk. _Love_ is worth the risk…

 _Isn’t_ it?

 


	14. Little Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sargent was only joking when he said angry sex was the answer to all of Ronan and Adam's marital problems, but they're putting this theory to the test...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I haven't quite done this chapter justice, as neither Adam nor Ronan were cooperating with what I needed them to do. (I guess they were dreading it as much as I was...) But I've put this scene off long enough. Let's just rip off this bandaid together, shall we?
> 
> Sending out some nsfw warnings for both you youngins and those of you reading in public. There is some uncomfortably dubious consent going on in this chapter. Let's all just keep in mind that Ronan's in a bad place and isn't in his right mind. I wouldn't ask this of him if I didn't think it was important to the plot. (Which, it is.) Pynch's situation is gonna get so much worse before it can get better...
> 
> I will try to get out a few more chapters in the next few days to balance it out if this one leaves you feeling cold. (I'm not a fan of letting intense scenes like this linger without some closure of some sort.)

Adam drops his keys in the misshapen ceramic bowl his daughter once made- a Father’s Day gift from back when times were better, their family was happy, and he and Ronan were full of hope. The jumble of metal clinks against the bottom. It fans out in the petals of a clumsily shaped flower painted purple against the clay, glinting like gold stamen in the lamplight of the entryway.

It’s quiet in The Barns tonight without the kids. No distant laughter cutting through the crack in Violet’s bedroom door. No Violet. Adam never quite realizes the intensity of her presence until she’s gone. Their reticent little girl, moving the smallest of molecules of their household into a thrumming vibrate- casting every energy into a roaring boil. She could be curled up with a book; stretching at a ballet bar; taking her frustrations out on a punching bag; concentrating fiercely, head bowed over her latest scientific specimen, quiet as a mouse, but Adam would know she’s here, in this house every time.

He just hopes he’s doing the right thing for her; the right thing for their _family_.

Ronan’s sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over bent elbows, mouth pressed into his fists and deep in thought. No beverage in his general vicinity. No glasses, no cans, no bottles. Nothing. Just Ronan and this cautiously promising silence.

So far so good.

“I just talked to Violet,” Adam remarks by way of greeting. He starts about rummaging in the cupboards for a water glass, if only to keep himself distracted from looking Ronan in the eye.

"She staying at Monmouth?” Ronan asks without moving from his stoic position at the table. His gaze trains steadily upon a ring in the aged wood.

“For the week,” Adam confirms, a cold dread settling through him already. Ronan isn’t going to make this easy. He knows. This is already more than they’ve spoken in the past two days without raised voices.

Ronan’s thumb sweeps absently across his lip as his chin shifts against his folded knuckles in the slightest of nods, neither pleased nor disappointed. Simply acknowledging. “Good.”

Adam breathes out, unaware of where to go from here. The strain between them pulls taut and it kills him how he doesn’t know how to talk to this man- this man he fell in love with once. This man whom he married, despite all the odds and castings of doubt. Things were so easy between them once. The problem is, Adam can’t remember when _once_ was. A year? Ten years? Twenty? Did they shoot themselves in the foot by making a vow; that forever kind of vow that bonded them for life and beyond? Were they crazy to set off on this madcap adventure together? They and this person created between them? God, he can’t even imagine what it felt like to know that he loved this man so passionately, none of the adversity they faced meant a thing.

Now it’s everything and it drags them down. Adam’s so sick of drowning beneath Ronan’s unrelenting tug. “Are we going to be ok?” He asks, to break the silence, if nothing else. He feels foolish in asking; stating the obvious is too big of a slap to the face.

Ronan lets out a snort of a laugh, all cynicism, but no venom. “What do you _think_ , Parrish?”

 _Parrish_. Of course. Once upon a time, this moniker was a common occurrence; a romantic gesture, even. But that’s not his name anymore; hasn’t been for sixteen years. Not since Violet, and not since he stripped himself of everything he once was to start over with this little family of his. When their daughter was christened as a Lynch, so was Adam, his identity signed away on the dotted line.

Adam Parrish is unresponsive. Adam Parrish _no longer exists_.

Adam cards his fingers through his hair and with a moment of dreaded hesitation, he swings one leg over the chair opposite Ronan and settles in for their latest confrontation. _God, Ronan. Please be kind_ … “I think… we’re in trouble,” he admits at a whisper, throat squeezed tight around this burden he’s buried deep down in his gut until now. It doesn’t feel any better now that it’s out in the open. In fact, it feels worse. “I think you need help.”

Ronan doesn’t fly into a rage. Not this time. His is a quiet stew Adam will let simmer until they can communicate like normal human beings. “And you?”

“I need to be home more,” Adam concedes defeat as calmly and valiantly as he can. He knows he plays a part in all this; knows he’s the one to blame for pushing Ronan so far away, he no longer recognizes him.

“Damn right you do,” Ronan murmurs and for a split second, he’s not so unrecognizable after all. Adam feels himself smiling in relief, because this Ronan… he _knows_ this Ronan. This Ronan is brusque and short tempered, but his Ronan nonetheless. “Would it have fucking killed you to say it earlier?”

“Ronan…” he sighs. Between his husband and his daughter, he feels like he’s been having the same argument with the same unreasonable person for the past week. And in a sense, he has been. Ronan doesn’t get to close the book on this and leave well enough alone. This thing between them- it’s a thing that can’t be fixed with a simple admission of guilt. He needs Ronan to accept responsibility, even if they have to compromise to get there… “We can’t keep playing this game. It’s not good for Violet.”

“Well it’s a bloody good thing Violet isn’t here right now, isn’t it?” Ronan huffs, a sneer tugging at his lips. He slumps against the back of his chair, arms crossed. “I don’t fucking _care_ what’s right for Violet. Not when you’re using her as a human shield. Just fucking say what you wanna say!”

Alright, fine. If that’s how it is… “You know what I think? I think we don’t know who we are anymore. And we _haven’t_ known ever since she came to us. Okay?” He carefully tiptoes around the words “dreamt her up,” on the off-chance Ronan gets the wrong idea, like everything else he’s tried to say. “I think we were fooling ourselves when I married you. I think you were right.” Adam nods vigorously while Ronan stares, his stunned silence letting the knife’s edge of his sneer fall away to simple shock.

“You took it back and I should’ve listened while you were offering.” None of this- _none_ of this feels real. He’s lost this battle before its begun and Ronan’s triumph is as hollow as the dried out skull of a man long since abandoned to the raging elements. “You knew you were holding me back. You knew I didn’t have a future here with you, and you let me marry you anyway.”

Ronan can’t sit still for this. He can’t sit back and watch it happen. “So what are you suggesting, Parrish? What?” He paces, struggling to keep the pain at bay. Up goes the mask, because he knows what he’s asking warrants an answer he doesn’t want to hear. His protective walls go up around him, battalion formation.

Now would be the time for a drink. But Adam’s eyes are on him, blazing into him, dripping acidic with regret. “Divorce?” is what Ronan offers, just as he offered Adam an out from their engagement all those years ago. Here he is, half wishing he could just cut Adam loose from his bonds and watch him fly, off into the distance, to a glimmering new life, where he’s successful and _happy_.

Adam Parrish is bigger than either of them can handle.

“Parrish, is _that_ what you want?”

Adam holds his head in his hands across the table. He can’t stand Ronan calling him by that name one more time. “You’re already addressing me like you’ve answered your own question.” God, he’s so tired. How long ago did Ronan uncouple them, he wonders, transforming him back into Adam Parrish of old right before his very eyes? Why does he yearn for that rag of a scared little boy when he could have him as he is, Adam Lynch: his _husband_ , right now instead?

Ronan simply stares at him for the longest of moments giving nothing away in the intensity of his gaze. His brow furrows, a familiar dip for the tick between his eyes. If he’s called Adam something he shouldn’t have, it was an unintentional gaff. He can’t keep his incarnations of this man straight anymore. Parrish rolls off his tongue, sweet as Virginia honey, as comforting as Nino’s ice tea. Safe as home. Adam Lynch has inherited the family’s sharp edges. Ronan’s not so sure he likes it.

If Adam resents their whole life together, that’s his call. Ronan just won’t stand by and listen. He throws up his hands in defeat. “Whatever, man. Do whatever the fuck you want. I’m not stopping you.”

He leaves the way Adam came without saying a single word more. He knows if he stays, he’ll cause a shit storm and he just doesn’t have the energy for the second round within so many days. Seventeen year old Ronan could have rolled with the punches for days, but Ronan, intrepidly facing the new moon of forty, doesn’t have the heart or the stamina. The adrenaline pumping through him now chases him to a bar instead, not exactly the closest, as the returned BMW takes him out as far away from his husband’s unbearable truths as he can get. But no matter how far he drives, he can’t escape his harsh words, lingering at the forefront of his brain.

Sixteen years of marriage and his husband’s throwing it all away.

 

Half a bottle of Jack and two pints of beer later, Ronan returns home, stumbling into bed. He’s been sleeping in the spare room the past few nights, but his body calls for company, even if it’s the kind of company that may resent his presence. Adam’s asleep when he crashes, or so he thinks...

In stark reality, Adam is painstakingly aware of Ronan’s every sound, every move the minute the BMW’s headlights blink through the front window and the door to the barn slides open. Ronan’s body is hot beside his on the mattress. Hot like it used to be, hot in the way that spurred them into a tangle of sheets and limbs.

Ronan’s stripped down to his boxers, having left his clothes in a lazy puddle in the middle of their bedroom floor. He’s curled on his side, facing the wall, the duvet sliding down over his waist, just so, leaving his long expanse of back and intricately woven tattoo in clear sight.

Adam’s fingers reach him, feather light, before he’s even rolled over to face Ronan’s body, tense shoulders loosened with the drink. He traces a whorl here and a spiral there, following a twisting vine of thorns down his spine, vertebrae by vertebrae. But his fingers, he finds, aren’t enough.

He settles in close, nuzzling up against the spot where he left off. He’s sorry for what he said. He didn’t mean it; neither of them meant anything they’ve said over the past few days and Ronan’s no good at accepting simple words. Such love and repentance must be felt, heart to heart, skin to skin. He doesn’t even know if Ronan will allow him _that_. But with their proximity, closer than they’ve been in months, all he can do is _try_.

He presses lips and tongue all along every inch of inked skin, a map of everything they’ve been through together. He’s done this hundreds of times before. This is no different. Or maybe it makes _all_ the difference. Adam doesn’t know. He hopes for the latter as he lays down his sacrificial offering to his unholy shrine of Ronan Lynch. Lights flickering candles in his name. Sets out relics of gold and damask. Blows a thousand prayers and wishes into the wind. Anything and everything to get this man to remember what it means to feel loved.

Because Adam has had time to think about it in his husband’s absence. And he’s willing to do what it takes to bring Ronan back from the brink. Even if it kills him.

One arm loops around Ronan’s waist, pulling him closer while his hand dips beneath the band of his boxers.

Ronan’s eyes pop open, wide awake and startlingly sober. An alcohol induced headache threatens to split his skull in two and he, unlike Adam, has followed his train of thought to more destructive pit stops, each more perilous than the last. “What are you doing?” his voice is gravelly with the drink and failed sleep.

Adam’s fingers curl around their prize. He gives it an experimental tug, unable to see the oncoming derailment about to befall him. There’s a train wreck waiting to happen, and it’s closer than meets the eye. “I just want to help you,” he whispers, pressing a careful kiss to his shoulder blade. “Please, Ronan. Just let me…”

Ronan rolls, Adam’s hand extricating itself in the process. Adam finds him startlingly close, face to face with Ronan and his eyes, fierce and glinting something sinister in the darkness. “You want to help?” he mocks, his teeth gleaming pearly white and unnaturally sharp in the swath of shadows. “You wanna help, roll over then.”

“What?” Adam splutters, surprised at the coarse demand on his husband’s lips.

“Roll. Over.” This is beyond anything Ronan’s ever done before. If he’s ever been demanding in bed, he’s all hands hands hands and a filthy mouth, not commanding words, all bark, no bite. He’s never meant any harm before.

 Adam rolls over onto his belly nonetheless. Whatever it takes…

Ronan clambers over him, reaching for the bedside table and pulling out the top drawer to fish for its precious contents. He finds what he’s looking for in a bottle, fitting comfortably in hand. “On your knees,” is his next demand. And without hesitation this time, Adam does this too. He’s going to let this happen, if it helps Ronan get this out of his system. Whatever _this_ is. After all, this isn’t about him, this is about Ronan.

He’s rough, barely taking the time to prepare them both. All full steam ahead. Even on their most volatile of nights together, Ronan’s been careful with him. Prepared him like a precious gift in his hands, afraid to let it crumple or break. Ronan’s a man of gentle foreplay and even gentler kisses, slowly pulling him open one bit of a time.

But not tonight. Tonight, Ronan tears into him, ruthless in his strokes. The bed heaves beneath them, the only sign of protestation Adam secretly wishes to give, but bound by duty, he knows he cannot. He doesn’t like not being able to see Ronan’s face. He’s expressive in the throes of the moment: a furrowed brow, a blissed out gasp, Adam’s name on his lips as they crest that hill together. Now, with nothing but the pillow beneath his arms in sight, he doesn’t know where Ronan’s headspace is. This scares him the most.

He doesn’t know this man, leaving bruises along his sides with possessive hands. This man doesn’t reach around for mutual gratification. He doesn’t offer chaste kisses to the knobs of his spine, or brush back the sweaty fringe of his hair as he thrusts. There is no give and take here, no matter how long Adam waits, hopes _desperately_ for it. It’s all take and nothing given back.

And when Ronan finally collapses, limp and heavy against him and their sticky sheets, Adam’s wide awake, haunted by everything he’s ever given Ronan and everything Ronan’s ever taken from him. What has Ronan given him in return?

A daughter to weld them back together… just barely. But little else.

As Ronan rolls back to his side of the bed, rumbling with snores, Adam lies awake, feeling for the first time in his marriage like he’s been thoroughly _used._    


	15. Blazing Spite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the dead of night, Adam makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short one today, but says precisely what it needs to.

Adam can’t sleep in this bed any longer. The sheets are stiff and dry, pulled taut over Ronan’s retreated form. His is a body fallen carelessly into slumber without mercy. Down he goes, easy easy easy. Out like a light. Sleep of the dead. Ronan gets his and Adam gets a thanklessly stinging resurgence of self-loathing he thought he’d shed for good when he left Henrietta that first time, reaching for a skyscraper’s higher heights than this little town that held him back.

Yet here he is.

Somewhere along the line, he made a mistake. And he suspects now it goes by the name of Ronan Lynch.

But he shares that name now, whispered hush hush hush on the lips of a celebration corrupted with unwitting neglect. God, had they even _tried_? Twenty years together, and had they worked to improve what they had? Or did they simply settle when Adam chose his hometown full of his darkest secrets over his wildest dreams?

Ronan’s dreaming now, no doubt. Dreaming up a life for himself better than this one. How long before he falls and refuses to get back up again? Stuck in the whirling vortex of a dream world more appealing than reality? Is Adam there in this world? Is he different? Is he kind and malleable like Ronan needs? Does he turn a blind eye to his husband’s drinking, stay home for hours on end, whisper sweet nothings into his ear and submit, sunk pillow-soft against the mattress?

Would Ronan–this new Ronan Adam’s learned to fear–follow in his father’s footsteps, and pull a perfectly constructed lover out of his dreams to replace him? Would Adam have to defend his territory, a bloody fight to the death, leaving him to mime this superficial version of himself Ronan prefers for the rest of his life just to keep him?

Has he been living a lie all along?

What does Ronan’s mouth taste like? Without the smoky cut of whisky enveloping his tongue? Adam finds he can’t remember- it’s been so long. His recent memories serve a sweeping prison line-up. One by one, another kiss parades before him, a grim processional, all teeth and too much tongue- a desperate thrust to tamp down angry words for one more night. ( _Please, god, one more night_ …) Impassioned and blazing, but empty of star-struck awe, or the cling of new love.

The honeymoon’s over. In fact, it’s been long dead. It’s just taken this long for them to find the body.

It’s four a.m. and Adam can’t sleep in this bed, or live in this skin any longer. He rolls out of bed, bypassing the en-suite bathroom in favour of the communal bathroom across the hall. He fills the tub warm to the brim and strips himself of every misdeed done to him in the past few days; past few weeks; past few _years_. Lets the water soak it up, sucking his skin dry of the evidence. The bruises can’t be washed away, no matter how hard he scrubs with despairing hands beneath the deluge of suds.

His eyes slip shut for mere seconds that feel like heavy hours as his father’s face burns against his retinas, and his body prickles with phantom fists that hit him; knocked him to the ground and punished him for things he never did.

He startles, head and shoulders out of his amniotic sac with a yelp he doesn’t recognize ripping from his throat. Heart pounds, breath heaves. He promised himself he would never let this happen. Ever again. He’d extricated himself from his father’s firm grip, crawled on his hands and knees to someone he trusted as salvation. He chose Ronan. And Ronan’s turning on him in the ugliest of ways.

He can’t let this escalate.

Adam towels himself off, newly resolved. He knows what needs to be done.

He favours a fresh pair of jeans and sweater from Gansey’s dresser in his and Blue’s room instead of admitting defeat and falling right back into the snare of Ronan’s arms.

First, he tackles the games room. Niall Lynch’s Irish legacy of spirits nestles in the corner, staring him down like a ruthless adversary. With black garbage bag in hand, he pulls each and every bottle off the shelf, one after another after another, disappearing into the depths of the plastic black hole.

He drains it all, watching with rapt attention as the unforgiving liquid glugs into the chrome basin of the kitchen sink from his twisting hand, and whirls down the drain, a toxic good riddance cast out into the abyss.

If he’s walking away, he can’t give Ronan the satisfaction of drowning himself within the comfort of his own home. He can either chase after a fleeing husband or the drink. It’s his choice.

Adam knows he’ll always come second. If not to the alcohol, to his own daughter. And he’s tired of fighting to reach that top rung. Not when fighting’s never gotten him anywhere but sunk deeper into this grave of his.

Well, tonight, he’s digging himself out before Ronan buries him alive, casket nailed shut beneath six feet of dirt.

He doesn’t need to pack. Everything he needs is already in Monmouth’s open arms. Tonight, he’s making a choice of his own, and this time, he chooses Monmouth. He chooses Violet. He chooses Indie and Sargent. He chooses Blue and Gansey. His family.

He chooses _his family_.

Will Ronan be man enough to do the same?

He scrawls a note on a piece of paper ripped out of the notepad by the phone, uncertain Ronan even _deserves_ an explanation.

 

_If I’m still what you want, come find me. -A_

It’s an invitation to worse things, easily misinterpreted as a challenge. But where Adam’s going, Ronan will have six people to answer to, and Blue and Gansey won’t be so quick in running to his defense.

Adam’s armed himself to the teeth with comrades and they will burn Ronan to the ground if they have to. Say a prayer for their lost friend. Perhaps in the light of day, he’ll find he’s been melodramatic in his suppositions, but for now, his heart blazes with spite and he’s ready to _go_.

He is not a man to be used and thrown away. Not like this.

He’s halfway to Monmouth when his thoughts get the best of him. That creeping word that Ronan offered haunts him, a sinister echo rattling through his brain over and over again. It whispers in his ear, as if it’s Cabeswater’s voice, spurring him onward with these big early morning decisions of his.

He turns the car around, headed not toward The Barns, but for the office. He has paperwork to attend to. And this time, it can’t wait.


	16. Bittersweet Symphony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sargent and Violet are ridiculously in love. Adam and Ronan are not. That doesn't stop Ronan from trying...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sargent's song of choice today is "Good Morning Starshine" from Hair because he is a big fat giant nerd...

 I.

Sargent can’t quite pinpoint when he started feeling what he feels. It’s become an intrinsic part of him, such an involuntary heartbeat beneath one steady palm, it’s no wonder he’s missed it until now. How many days now has he woken up to the sight of her, rolled over to unwittingly face him against the pillow beside him? Three thousand, five hundred and twenty, by his guestimation. Maybe more, maybe less. Math has always been more Violet’s thing…

And god, has that little tingle that shoots right through him, straight to his toes been there all along? How blind he’s been, after all this time. Sixteen years. Sixteen years of knowing this girl and he’s only just realized she’s the pinnacle of his everything. There is no getting better than this. He’s here. He’s made it. And she’s been kind enough to join him, hand clasped firmly in his as she pulls him up over that final crag, at the top of their own personal mountain.

The clouds have cleared over the horizon and Sargent’s world is so bright and new as it revolves around this unexplainable mystery of a girl. He knows her better than he knows himself, yet he’s eager to discover the nuances of this different side of her; this side she’s kept so well hidden from the world for so long.

In sleep, she doesn’t hide. Her nose scrunches against displeasing dreams beneath its fine dusting of freckles. Late in the evening, she’ll vocalize her complaints with little muffled mewls and half coherent words, but beneath the morning light pouring in from the bedroom window, she’s still, one hand absently seeking him out, fingers outstretched and waiting to fold home around their counterparts. A stray curl tumbles over her face, and that’s it. He reaches out to tuck it away with one sweeping hand. Her nose does that little wrinkle again, ticklish under his touch. He presses the first peppering of kisses there, feather light, and of course, one is not enough. 

Her eyes flutter open just as he’s left off worshipping her lids, near translucent and paper thin as a dragonfly wing. He half expects her precious sleep face to fall away to reveal the true Violet, all moody and displeased with being touched so intimately. But sweet, drowsy Violet sticks around, her mouth tugging into a blissful grin at the sight of him.

First thing in the morning and he’s the first thing she sees. He can’t think of a greater honour.

“Good morning, star shine,” he greets her at a hushed singsong, brushing her hair away from her cheek in the cup of his hand. She blinks furiously back at him, waiting for her sleep-addled brain to analyze this data. “The Earth says hello. You twinkle above us, we twinkle below…” His voice dips on the final word of the first line in the song and he’s caught her smiling too big now.

She rolls, smashing her face against the pillow to hide it. “Oh my god, you’re such a fucking nerd,” she gives the first breath of life to Violet Unfiltered, muffled against the pillow. Whose idea was it to introduce him to _Hair_ at such a young, impressionable age anyway? His mother has a few things to answer for… shattering Violet’s perfectly good sleep, for one.

She can’t hide the giggle in her voice though. Not from him. He keeps going, louder now, drawn up onto his knees and arms spread wide likes he’s serenading the whole neighbourhood.

Violet hauls herself up, still laughing, and cups a hand over his mouth, cheeks blazing. He’s practically shouting gibberish _–lalalalalo…_ when she releases his face and that just won’t do. With her hands slid to frame his fine Gansey jaw line, she kisses him, full on the mouth. Enough to steal his breath away completely.

_God damn. Violet Lynch…_

Sargent’s head is spinning, little cartoon bluebirds circling his head like a whirling halo when she releases him. He can feel her drawn breath against his mouth when she says, “I didn’t tell you you could _stop_.”

And of course, she’s gone far enough and off he pitches her, a tangle of limbs, right off the side of the bed in a single clumsy tackle. She shrieks going down, tugging him with her by the collar of his shirt in her swift descent.

And no, it _can’t_ get much better than this.

II. 

Indie watches Violet fidget from across the kitchen counter. Sargent is literally down the hall, spending a questionable amount of time getting dressed and Vi’s already antsy. With the way these two have been going for the past twenty-four hours, Indie wouldn’t be surprised if her brother got sidetracked, tangled half in, half out of his clothes, and caught in the midst of some sickly love poem.

These two are going to be the death of her, she knows it. How long does Indie have to let this go on before she has to interfere? She clears her throat. “Vi,” she warns, leaning full-bodied across the table to reach for her hand. Violet jumps under her touch. “He’s okay. More importantly, _you’re_ okay.”

Violet frowns, still fidgeting like she wants to squirm right out from under Indie’s hands. “I know but-“

Indie shakes her head. These two are hopeless… “Honey, literally two days ago, you went hours without each other. You can survive another ten minutes.”

Literally two days ago, Violet’s world wasn’t spinning out of control. Now, her parents won’t so much as look at her without remembering their ills and she can’t stand the thought of losing someone else to the silence. She has love in her hands, and right now, the keeper of her heart has carried it too far away from her body. The bedroom door is a heavy barrier between them and she can feel every tug, marionette strings with his every move.

“No. Indie, I…” She doesn’t expect Indie to understand anguish. Indie has an uncanny knack for bouncing right back from disaster unscathed, feet touched the ground, alighted graceful like a butterfly landing. If her parents were going through what Violet’s were, Indie would still come out the other side in one piece, smiling away, the silver lining already found and used to make a fine party dress or hair accessory.

Violet finds she’s not handling the situation quite so well. Indie Sargent possesses more humility in her tiny body than Violet ever could. “Muffin, I love you. We both love you. And we are here for you one hundred percent. But there is only so much bat shit insanity I will let you get away with.”

“Indie…” She suspects her morning companion is being unreasonable.

“No.” Indie shakes her head. “Okay, here’s the thing. Sam says there’s an Aglionby party going on tomorrow night. You should come with us.”

Violet blinks at the unfamiliar name before something in the back of her mind reminds her that this mysterious _Sam_ must be Indie’s new _person._ “Indie, I can’t-“

“You can’t socialize like a normal person? Your broody introverted sensitivities can’t handle a party? Come on, baby girl- _live_ a little!” Indie squeezes her hands, pressed into hers. A thumb soothes across her tense knuckles. “Just… give yourself a few hours _without_ Sargent. It’ll be good for you. I promise. We can find you a hot outfit, get you all dolled up… It’ll be fun!” A proper girls’ night, is what Indie’s asking for. Something Violet is loathe to give her, as she doesn’t feel particularly ladylike on any given day. She can’t abide the nail polish, or glamour of trying on clothes or different hairstyles. She _hates_ talking about boys, and _anything_ romantic for that matter. She’s just not into the usual girly things like Indie is.

Indie sighs, getting up to approach her properly. She reaches out to gently take up a handful of curls beneath her fingers to frame Violet’s face. “My darling kitten, I am _so_ happy for you, and I am _so_ happy for my brother. But you guys need to figure out how to be together without being _together_ all the fucking time.”

She’s right, Violet knows. She’s just rattled from the last few days and Sargent’s been such a steady rock through all of this. But Indie’s here too, and doing her best to make things easy for her. Her mouth twitches as she reaches for her pint-sized friend in a rare, uncharacteristic show of affection. She pulls Indie to her, one hand cradling the crown of her head. “Thank you,” she whispers against the top of her head. “I’m sorry I'm such an asshole.”

Indie snorts, pulling away from their intimate embrace. “You’re not even a little bit sorry.”

And there. Indie’s done her magic and the clouds have parted once more, tension broken. Violet laughs with that familiar look on her face like she’s always surprised her body is capable of such a joyous reaction. “No, I’m not.”

Indie smiles back at her, relieved at their progress. “I’m not either.” She winks, giving Violet her well-earned space for the morning, just as her brother emerges from the bedroom.

“Good morning, you,” he addresses the room at large, gathering up the first girl he can get his hands on. Today, it happens to be Indie. He picks her up with practiced ease and whirls her around once or twice to elicit the satisfying whoop of a laugh and a hearty protestation of “ _Sarge_!” before setting her down again.

“Don’t you dare,” Violet warns from her position at the bar, index finger pointed, vehement, at his chest.

Sargent raises up his hands in surrender. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” …Although all three of them know he would in a heartbeat, despite his knowing what’s good for him.

The two of them share a lengthy gaze full of private things that leave Indie fidgeting on the spot. That’s the thing with swiftly becoming the third wheel. She’s seen it coming from miles away, of course. But still, here she is on the periphery, with no real way of connecting to Violet and Sargent while they’re in the midst of becoming something _profound_.

But Indie’s profound in her own ways, and is pleased to leave the pair of them to it, when she has her own brand of love to attend to by the bucketful. She aims to make a hasty retreat, raising two fingers for Violet’s benefit. “Raven party,” she reminds her, pointing index and middle finger at her elegantly sulky friend, then back at herself. “Be there or be square.”

Violet sneers before finally breaking down and wending herself around Sargent’s neck. “Oh, bite me, tiny cretan.”

“Sure I can’t tempt you with a whirl around the kitchen?” Sargent teases as soon as Indie’s out of earshot.

“Not on your life,” she confirms, her mouth a grim line, keeping up appearances only. She has better ideas this morning. Ones that involve keeping him quiet that much longer. She breathes into the kiss with the bumping of noses and collision of lips. He’s an open book and she willingly takes him all in, just as he is, inhaling him with every breath she takes and exhaling every last inch of self-loathing she possesses. He swallows it up and spins it into something better; something he’ll give back to her with his own exhalation. And this is how it goes, a transformation of dust to gold right before their very eyes, transplanted with a kiss.

 Sargent intends to see every last drop of negativity leave this pessimist of a girl and he’s the boy to do it. “Did you know that I love you?” he inquires, most seriously when she finally allows him permission to breathe.

She steals one more nipping kiss from him, standing there against the bar. “Yes. But I don’t hate the way it sounds.” In fact, every time he’s told her (in the multitudes beyond the dozens by now, with that yammering mouth of his that just won’t quit), those three words have shot a tingle right down her spine; raised goose-bumps across her arms. “And you… are just swell.”

“Oh… _well_.” It’s not quite the compliment he was fishing for, but a blush creeps across his cheeks and nose nonetheless. It’s as good a declaration as any, from girl of few kind words, Violet Lynch. “If that’s a fact…”

“For a boy with dumb hair and a dismal taste in clothes?” This elicits an overly dramatic _hey_! from Sargent, even though he knows this is her particular way of saying _I love you_ back. He prods her in the sides to keep her honest. She considers. “I may be tempted to keep you around. All irredeemable qualities aside.”

“Well, good,” he replies, with a breath of relief. Not that he ever doubts she’d ever change her mind… They’re in this now. He doubts she’d sabotage a good thing. “Because I intend on keeping you for a _very_ long time.”

Violet makes an ugly noise in her throat: a tutting cough, as if to say that’s enough words of affection for one day. “I’m not your kept woman, loser,” she hisses.

But she kisses him quiet anyway.

III.

Ronan’s day is no different than any other day. Just another Tuesday, rolled around again, as it does, week in and week out. He doesn’t know how many Tuesdays he’s lost track of, and lost one more inch of his life to the void. Everything blurs after a while. His world has become a hazy smoke screen of beer goggles and he can’t pick out one event from another any more. It’s all a jumble of people and places with no distinct time frame. Just yesterday, he stood before the man he loved and promised him a world he couldn’t give. Just yesterday, his daughter celebrated her third birthday, to the sound of galloping feet as she threw herself against his legs at his grand entrance- her favourite person.

He suspects his days as a husband and father are numbered on the dawn of this new tomorrow, but nothing can prepare him for the harsh truth.

If Adam’s conspicuously absent throughout the day, this is hardly a surprise. Ronan’s used to the deadly silence that his husband leaves, oppressive, with his early-morning escapes to the office.

This day is no different. Ronan awoke alone, rolled over to a cold indentation of where his husband used to be. They haven’t shared a bed for two nights now, and deep down, he misses rolling into that warm heat of another person beside him. He misses wrapping strong arms around him, steady and sure that this- at least _this_ is his calling.

But lately, their whole relationship is cast in doubt and he no longer knows what he wants anymore. He no longer knows if all this fighting is worth the effort it takes to pick up the pieces in the aftermath. He’s been petty and mean- they _both_ have been. And he doesn’t know how to fix it. Every time he thinks they’re making progress, off Adam goes on another spiteful tangent about responsibility and self-pity, and what’s good for _Violet,_ as if Ronan doesn’t know what his own daughter means to him. He’s not a _child_.

Adam’s right about one thing though: they _don’t_ know who they are anymore. Sometimes Ronan thinks they never did. They jumped into being Adam and Ronan, being _them_ so fast, without time to consider who they were apart, Ronan never did get to know the real Ronan Lynch. He was so desperate to keep Adam, he put his own life on hold. And then Violet…

Twenty years and he has no fucking clue who he’s supposed to be without these people. He’s just floating, aimless in the atmosphere, waiting for an epiphany to come to him. He’s spent too long trying to be something for Adam and Violet, he doesn’t know how to be something for _himself_. And no matter how hard he tries, he’ll never find it at the bottom of a glass, no matter how much he drinks to numb the pain of not knowing who he’s become.

Has he become anything? Anything at all? Or is he just here, ceasing to exist, piece by piece: a seething self-sacrifice, slowly burning away at the wick?

If his life is devoid of meaning, he’d rather burn himself out, and get it over with, than sit here and linger, watching the people he loves walk away from him.

He doesn’t know Adam isn’t coming back; doesn’t find the note, until late in the evening, when the silence descends upon the Barns, and the darkness creeps in. Just Ronan, all to himself in this empty farmland, with nothing but the animals for company.

The first thing he notices is the beer from the fridge has vanished. Even this isn’t particularly out of place, as Ronan can never recall what and how much he drank the nights previous. But this time, something funny stirs in his gut for the first time, and he knows _something’s_ going on.

He’s on high alert by late evening, although he’s still not certain what he’s supposed to be looking for. He prattles about his day, caring for the animals, collecting eggs, and milking the cows, all the while, feeling that uncertainty settle in his stomach. Nothing feels right and he can’t even explain why…

He hopes a drive will clear his head and set things to rights, but he’s still stuck in his head, lost in the dreaded _what ifs_ and _maybes_ that are usually more reserved for his husband and daughter’s deep thoughts.

And what _about_ them?

He considers calling Violet. In fact, he’s already pressed her number on speed dial and let it ring for three rounds before he remembers that look on her face when he told Adam he’d rather see her dead than carry on without her.

He can’t tell whether the voicemail greeting him on the other side (she’s gone for an automatic response because Violet notoriously hates her own voice and never likes going an extra mile for technology or other humans) is a sign that she’s busy or she’s still furious with him. Violet rarely, if ever, answers her phone on a good day, always leaving it sitting forgotten a few feet away or settled in the bottom of her bag.

He wonders if seeing his number on her screen later will kick her into action, or whether she’ll carry on her moody silence against him. Adam didn’t say a word about how she took staying at Monmouth this week. If Ronan knows his daughter (which he bloody well _does_ , better than anyone, thank you _very_ much), she didn’t take it well. Which means she’s probably not taking either his or Adam’s calls.

He doesn’t bother leaving a message. There’s every chance she won’t even bother listening to it anyway. He huffs a sigh, keying in a text message instead. The words _I’m sorry_ and _I love you_ stare back at him in their blue speech bubbles. The ominous tug in his gut taunts him for his cowardice in his inability to say these things to her face. Now, they’re just empty words, hanging in the balance, proving nothing.

And as the small dialogue under his text shifts from _delivered_ to _seen_ , the hours seem to stretch on longer and longer each minute Violet leaves his desperate pleas unanswered. He reconsiders calling and leaving a voicemail, just to clarify that what he says is God-given truth. He doesn’t know how to communicate the truth to her in a way she will accept. Words were never his strong point. He’d rather leave that to Parrish and his law talk. He finds whatever he says to be superficial and wrong on his tongue, a contrition he’s not willing to own up to when he could beg forgiveness in a more meaningful way.

What can he possibly dream up for this ethereal dream of a daughter who thinks he hates her beyond all reason? What can he do to make this up to her? It’s a plan to be hatched for another day, perhaps when Adam isn’t so angry with him and he can cooperate enough to help him brainstorm.

For now, he needs a drink.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there, lounging on one of the couches in the games room, without giving a single thought to his father’s bar in the corner. Too preoccupied by thoughts of Violet, it never even occurred to him to look.

But the bar is empty, has been empty all day long, shelves bare of his father’s alcoholic legacy. There’s nothing left but a collection of dust and a cobweb or two in the corners. That dread in his gut rises like bile in his throat. His fingers spread wide on the note before he even recognizes it for what it is, taped to the wood of the bar in Adam’s precise handwriting. _If I’m still what you want, come find me._

Of _course_ Adam Parrish is still fucking what he wants, is his first immediate thought. Nothing has changed since last night. They may have fought for the millionth time, but that’s all it was. Just another fight. They’d bounce back like they always do, and carry on, status quo returned.

He doesn’t understand. Nothing in the Barns is any different. None of Adam’s things are out of place. The only drastic change is the lack of alcohol in Ronan’s house and system, and he feels the keen sting. What the _hell_ is Adam trying to tell him?

He thinks back to last night’s argument, trying to decipher their latest fight from every single other fight they’ve ever had. They’ve all blended together into one big, furious cloud of loathing and he can’t pick out the right pieces to answer his questions.

There’s nothing to be done for it, he decides, but to go to Adam himself.  He tears the note off the bar, crumpling it in his hand as he stalks through the house in search for a coat. He whirls on a long, black pea coat and slams the door behind him in his haste. The BMW stares back at him from the driveway, one of his only kind friends. The firmness of the wheel beneath his hands still sting of Violet’s escape into the night from two days past, all the more reason to fix this.

The adrenaline pumping through his veins beg him to rev up the speed, to get there faster. He has a vision in his head, of knocking on the front door of Monmouth (unnecessary, but common courtesy, after what he’s said and done), of Adam answering, hardly expecting to find Ronan on the other side. Pure, unadulterated relief settling over Adam’s face as he realizes seeing Ronan here and now, means he’s made his choice and it’s _him_ \- _always_ him. He imagines swooping in and dipping him into a deep, heartfelt kiss, the best they’ve had in _years,_ without a single word’s preamble. They don’t need it. They simply _are_.

He’s going to fix this. And Adam and Violet will come home to him and their family will be _perfect_ once more.

He parks the BMW and jogs up the stairs to the second floor, where he knows his husband awaits him. Adam’s note feels heavy in his fist. His fingers keep running over the creases, his mind still scanning the words. _If I’m still what you want, come find me._ He’s coming for Adam now, to prove himself worthy of this man’s love.

He shoves the hand holding his husband’s note in his coat pocket, lifting the other to knock like the gentleman he’s to be within this fateful moment that will change both of their fates for the better.

To his disappointment, it’s not Adam who answers the door. His anticipation wilts some when Gansey stands in the entryway, glasses slightly askew and his hair rumpled on one side as if he’s fallen asleep marking papers again. This disheveled, he looks startlingly like his son, tweed coat just barely sparing him of their shared taste in dubious clothing. “Ronan,” he greets him, more wary than a dear friend and living partner should.

“Where’s Adam?” There’s no malice in his voice when he asks. No threat, no anger. Just genuine curiosity and heart pounding expectation.

Gansey blinks, a single brow raised in surprise. Ronan watches him impatiently as he hesitates, wondering whether to give him the information he seeks, or to send him on his merry way. At long last, he sighs, deflating. “Just give me a minute.” He pushes himself off from the jamb and closes the door behind him.

Ronan can hear people talking from within. Gansey fussing, no doubt. Blue’s there, huffing over something or other while Gansey reasons his way through what to do with the man on their doorstep. Ronan knows what he ought to do. On any given day, he wouldn’t have bothered knocking. Like the rest of them, he has a key. But he’s trying to be decent for once. Can’t they give him that?

At long last, a third set of footsteps trudge toward the door, and there is the love of Ronan’s life, standing before him like an apparition, startled into being. “Ronan,” he breathes, looking just as stunned to see him there as he imagined. _He’s going to fix this_.

“Don’t say another word,” Ronan’s words come out as a sultry growl as he surges forward, one arm winding to curl around the small of his back. Adam’s body is slack against his, but pulls taut to attention as he leans in for a kiss worthy of a noble knight come to save his damsel.

Adam’s mouth is in Ronan’s sights, right where he needs it, right where everything can just fall back into place. He feels him suck in a breath, down low against his spine, and practically against his own mouth.

Before happily ever after can be handed to them on a silver platter, hellish curse broken with true love’s kiss, Adam jerks his face away. One hand reaches up to push against Ronan’s chest. Not to pull him closer by the collar of his shirt, like the days of old, but away.

The expression in Adam’s face is blazing, the flames of betrayal licking the dark irises of his eyes. Ronan glances down at his husband’s hand, in direct contact with his chest, that dread dropped back into the pit of his stomach like its always belonged, and he realizes he has not come to him empty handed.

There, clutched in Adam’s elegant hand, is an offering of his own, in the form of a manila envelope, pressed home against the buttons of Ronan’s coat.

Adam’s lips purse into a fine line, his eyes awash with grief, begging silently for Ronan to understand without having to say the words out loud.  He tries nonetheless, his mouth moving, but no sound springing forth to clarify. Finally, the words slip out of him, choked and regretful, but sure, and Ronan realizes there’s nothing he could have done to fix this, because Adam’s already made up his mind.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the angst. I've tried to offset it with some cutes, but my brain didn't want to go there this week... If you guys need a little something extra to escape the Pynch blues, let me know and I'll write you guys a cute little Vi/Sarge drabble. :)
> 
> (From here on out, I intend on writing a separate drabble for every chapter featuring heavy angst and posting them pretty much at the same time, so if you find I haven't posted one with a chapter you feel warrants a bit of a fluffy pick-me-up, let me know and I'll do one up.)


	17. Inevitable Conclusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan and Adam roll with the same old punches while Blue runs interference.

 I.

Ronan’s heart pounds in his chest. No. This cannot be _it_ for them. Adam can’t just quit on this. Not after _twenty years_ together. They’ve invested far too much time and energy into this to just… _give up_. He knows what he said last night, about Adam doing what he likes, but like everything else he’s said in the last few days, he doesn’t mean it. Divorce is the sinister last resort and he shouldn’t have brought it up when he did. He sure as hell didn’t expect Adam to draw up the paperwork _overnight_.

But there’s a problem with never meaning what you say. The people who mean the most no longer hear what’s being said beneath the surface. In fact, Ronan’s talked shit so often lately, Adam’s stopped hearing him at all.

They’re the Lynch family. And the Lynch family never lies.

Somewhere along the line, he’d turned his back on his family code, losing all credibility with it.

God, he’s fucked everything up now… how the fuck does he fix this?

“Adam,” he chokes out, reluctantly accepting the manila envelope, if only to resolve _some_ tension between them. “Whatever’s wrong with us, this isn’t the answer.”

His wayward husband scoffs back, craning his neck to get a sense of their unwanted audience. From his vantage point inside, Adam can hear the soft rumble of his daughter and godson talking quietly in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Blue and Gansey have slipped off to give him and Ronan sufficient privacy. They haven’t a single clue what’s going on between them, but they’re wise to keep well out of it.

Adam beckons Ronan out into the hall nonetheless. They can’t have this conversation here. “What do you suggest, Ronan? Couple’s counseling? Rehab? A.A.? What? _Tell me_ what you think would be a better option than this! What else could _possibly_ cure this toxic marriage of ours? I’m open to suggestions!” He’s crossed his arms over his chest, already flaring with the latest shouting match to come.

Ronan hasn’t the slightest inkling of what he’s done to rile him up this badly. Not this time. This time, he’s drawn a blank. He just wants Adam home, back at the Barns, there for his husband and daughter. For _once_. He can’t fathom why this is so hard a concept for Adam to grasp. He even admitted he needed to be home more himself. A little follow through never harmed anyone… Of course the almighty lawyer Adam Parrish is all talk. He should’ve known. “You own up to your bullshit and I own up to mine!” is his suggestion of the day. The suggestion he’s been giving since day one, but Adam’s not _listening_ to him. “And don’t just say it because it’s what I want to hear. Actually fucking come home to your daughter once in a while. And not just to check in on her at midnight like you’ve been doing lately. Actually fucking _come home_.”

It’s a reasonable request, Adam knows. As far as Ronan’s concerned, this is a compromise, set out on a silver platter. But Adam’s mind is still clouded with the previous night’s revolting violations. He can still feel Ronan’s fingers, digging into his sides and the way he…

He mustn’t think about that now. Swallow back the bile and think about the big picture here, Lynch. “If I regulate my work hours, will you stop drinking?”

Neither of these are easy addictions to break. Adam can’t give up his extra hours without falling behind on paperwork any more than Ronan can’t stop drinking cold turkey without falling into withdrawals. They both have their vices. Adam’s just happen to be nobler and less destructive to himself and their family.

The truth of the matter is, Adam’s more afraid of a drunken Ronan than the sober Ronan standing before him. At least sober Ronan can negotiate without flying off the handle completely. Drunken Ronan doesn’t give a rat’s ass who he hurts in his spiral, just so long as he’s dragging as many people down with him as possible. And Adam doesn’t like the prospects of dealing with this side of Ronan on a more permanent basis. He can’t stick around if violent, drunk Ronan is here to stay. He fled last night knowing that man is dangerous and he will firmly stand his ground against him now if he has to. Adam can’t live with Jekyll and Hyde roaming his halls. It’s a risk he just can’t take anymore. The guessing game is too much and it’s only a matter of time before Ronan intentionally turns on his own daughter.

Ronan’s looking at him like he’s lost his mind. Impatient with the exhaustion of rehashing the same argument _again_. “I can’t promise that any more than you can promise a regular work schedule, man. You quit, I quit. That’s how we play this game. All or nothing. Do you want your family or not, Parrish?”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Last Adam checked, Ronan wasn’t the one brandishing the threat of divorce over their heads. Adam works. It’s what he does. It’s all he _knows_. They may not need the extra money, but it makes him feel more secure, like he’s contributing something to this world. Plus, he _loves_ his job. It’s fulfilling like coming home to Ronan never quite was.

This revelation only endears him further to the divorce papers clenched in his husband’s irate hands. He’s making the right choice. If only Ronan would just see it.

“I’m not sure I’ll _have_ a family to come home to if you carry on the way you’ve been,” Adam hisses bitterly. “You don’t get to hold Violet over my head like that when it’s not just your life on the line here. It’s _hers_. You stop drinking, you save your daughter’s _life_.”

“I damn well can hold her over your head if it means you walking away from your job in favour of seeing her that much more before she inevitably snuffs it.”

“ _Ronan_ ,” Adam warns, concerned everyone on the other side of that door will hear them. He can’t suffer a repeat of the other night. He just can’t. “We wouldn’t be bartering our daughter’s _life_ if you would just admit to having a _problem_. Her untimely death would be a lot less inevitable if you just _took care_ of yourself for once!”

 “Well then fucking come home instead of running further and further away from us!” Adam’s already got one foot out the door. They both know by now. In Adam’s point of view, he’s already gone. All of this is just a painful formality before they can reach a satisfying conclusion and he can finally walk away for good, taking Violet with him if he has to. He just wishes Ronan would just get there faster, if he does at all…

“Look, sign the papers or don’t. I’m leaving no matter what you decide to do. Just… think long and hard about our daughter when you make that decision.”

They’re done talking. _Adam’s_ done talking. They’ve beaten this argument to death and he can’t bear to look at the battered carcass any longer.

For a flash of a second, Ronan bothers to let his face contort into the stricken shock he _should_ be feeling before he smooths it over with an expression of indifference. “You know what? Fuck you. I’m not signing your damn papers. You can fuck off for all I care.” He punctuates his words with a swift thrust of the manila folder, back against his husband’s chest. In his distress, Adam doesn’t even bother to catch it before it topples end over end, papers spilling from its depths in a deluge of spliced trees brutally sacrificed to the unworthy cause.

It’s not what Ronan expected at all when he came rushing back to Monmouth’s waiting arms in a desperate attempt to rescue the ramshackle remnants of their marriage. But he’s here now and he can’t stop this speeding train from pummeling straight off the rails. Not anymore. 

 

II.

 

Blue and Gansey remain tight lipped the instant Adam and Ronan slip out. Gansey’s concern is with their two best friends, waging war on the other side of his front door, while Blue’s falls to the two teenagers sitting in her kitchen.   They have faith Adam and Ronan will figure it out. They always do. And while they’re not necessarily happy in their usual post-blow out haze, they return to the status quo, back to normal, as normal as normal can be, given their circumstances. This time won’t be any different. They’ll find a way.

They _have_ to.

Gansey’s eavesdropping inconspicuously by the door while Blue takes it upon herself to whisk the children away from a potentially horrid situation. She finds Violet and Sargent with their heads bent together over the bar. They’re either kissing or talking or both. Blue doesn’t particularly care either way so long as she can distract them long enough to get them out of the house.

She leans over the bar, extricating a twenty dollar bill from the tray by the phone. With a clearing of her throat to separate the pair, she sets her plan in motion. “Hey, why don’t you guys go out for ice cream or something?”

Sargent’s brow furrows as he edges away from Violet. His hand is still clasped in hers: a reverent gesture of _never let me go_. “Right now? Mom, it’s the middle of February,” he reminds her incredulously. There’s still snow dusting the ground outside and at this hour of the evening, the air will have already frosted over.

Blue rolls her eyes. “Ice cream… pizza… it makes no difference to me. Just get out of here for a while. Have a nice little date, just the two of you before Indie comes home.”

“But _Mom_ …” Sargent’s chosen a persona of stubborn teenage son tonight, making Blue’s job that much harder.

“Just go,” she sighs, exasperated, waving the twenty in her son’s face. “Get out of my hair for an hour at least.”

Violet eyes the money warily from beside him, clearly more keenly tuned in to the tense atmosphere than Sarge ever could be. She snatches up the money before Sargent can overthink it and nudges him off his stool. “Let’s just go…” Bless Violet for being so damned _astute_. God knows Sargent’s inherited the Gansey blissful ignorance.

“Go out the back please,” Blue’s order is sharp and to the point, before Violet steers Sargent right into the oncoming danger standing right on their front doorstep. “Your father’s trying to grade papers in the living room.”

Sargent’s brow lifts, knowing full well they _never_ use the back entrance and Gansey _rarely_ brings work home with him if he can help it.

“Whatever. Let’s just go,” Violet repeats in a huff, her arm pulled through the crook of Sargent’s elbow. “I could go for some rocky road. Or some fuckin’ _sorbet_!”

“You’re just the sort of difficult tart who would go for the sour stuff,” Sargent jibes good naturedly, already recovered from the oddity of his mother’s request.

“Oh, bite me, Stretch,” Violet’s mordant voice drifts down the hall around the corner as they make their way toward the back entrance. Blue heaves a sigh of relief, one more bullet officially dodged.

“Dick Gansey III, step away from the door!” she calls from the kitchen, knowing full well her partner is still pressed full-bodied against their front door in an attempt to catch the latest in the Lynch family drama.

Gansey lets out a deflated moan before admitting defeat and joining her. “So? How’s it going?” she inquires carefully, dreading his answer lest he caught a word or two of their friends’ exchange.

“It’s not looking good,” he sighs with a shake of his head, face flushed cold at the prospect. “I don’t know how they’re gonna fix this if they don’t _compromise_.”

Blue’s close now and presses a hand to his arm, just below his shoulder. “Hey, they’re gonna make it through. They’re _Adam and Ronan_.”

“I’m starting to think that may not be enough for them anymore.”

“Honey, if there’s anything those two are, it’s resilient.”

Gansey’s in the careful process of biting his thumbnail. Blue knows a nervous tick when she sees one and envelopes him in a reassuring embrace. She presses her face into his tweed coat, which he refuses to take off, even after coming home from the office. It smells strongly of him anyhow: mint, memories, and _home_. She could never imagine walking away from Gansey. There’s too much between them and god dammit, she _loves_ this man. Once upon a time, she thought Adam and Ronan felt that very same way about each other.

Now, she’s not so sure.

“Hey, so you wanna talk about how your son and our best friends’ daughter have been making out?” she asks as casually as possible in a swift attempt to get his mind off all this horrible business. “Or the fact that your baby girl’s gallivanting about with that one gender queer Aglionby student as we speak?”

“I’m sorry. You _what_ now?”

Blue passes him a wicked grin from against his chest and pulls him down to kiss that dumbfounded expression off his face.

They'll all live to see another day if it's the last thing Blue Sargent ever does.

 

 


	18. Worst Forgotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violet's sick of all the fights. Meanwhile, Sargent's beginning to figure out a few things about himself and what he wants...

“You know, you’re supposed to _eat_ your ice cream, not murder it,” Sargent notes as he watches Violet mash her raspberry sorbet deeper into the bottom of its paper confinements with the flat of her plastic spoon.

When Violet glances up, it’s to glare, her fist clenched around the spoon’s narrow neck. Sargent doesn’t particularly know what he’s done to warrant a death glare, but she’s shooting daggers at him now. A melting tendril of his own double-tiered rainbow and double chocolate monstrosity dribbles down his ornate peanut studded waffle cone and along the side of his hand unnoticed as he gapes back at her.

“They’re fighting again,” she supplies after so long of indulging Sargent’s fish out of water impression. “I can tell.”

Sargent’s brow hikes up. “Ronan and Adam?”

Violet rolls her eyes, stabbing her spoon into the mound of her ice cream, leaving the utensil sticking, compass north, up to the ceiling. “No, Indie and the Camaro. _Of course_ my fucking parents.”

Sargent leans back in his chair, hesitant to bring this up again. “I still say maybe you’re misinterpreting the whole thing. Maybe you should just give your dads the benefit of the doubt.”

Violet scoffs, pushing her ice cream cup away from her. “Sure. I’ll just give them the benefit of the doubt for the past four years and beyond, shall I?” She counts back her parents’ heated arguments to the day she turned thirteen, and the womanhood nature gifted her with slowly corroded Ronan’s endearments to her. It’s been going on longer than that, but Vi’s felt it most keenly within the most recent years. He’s too afraid to see her grow up, but that doesn’t excuse his abhorrent behavior toward her and Adam.

When Violet was a child, she imagined growing up to be a painful process, one to be feared by the person going through it. She looked to all these adults in her life, tall and knowledgeable about the secrets of the world, and she wanted in. There was probably some secret password she needed to become worthy; certain trials and tribulations to experience before she could pass the test that would fling her full-bodied into adulthood.

Nothing would quite prepare her for the exact opposite. Until now, Violet Lynch has continued along her life’s course, thus far, utterly unscathed. What she never considered was that growing up _was_ a painful process… but not for her. Ronan: her father, her creator, has been run right through, watching Violet grow up and every day, she becomes that much more mature, that much more beautiful, that much more of a _woman_ , no longer his little girl. She’s a long stretch of hallway, and Ronan’s growing further and further away no matter how long he walks to catch up to her.

Violet wonders whether she even wants to be caught if it means potentially being torn asunder, her body parted from her soul, and thrown, fresh meat, to the dogs.

She can’t trust the man who created her. His clever mind that sketched her to life is slipping, contorted into a grotesque unrecognizable form. For the first time in her life, she’s afraid.

Her phone lies face down on the table at her elbow. Sargent’s snuck a glance toward it on more than one occasion now, more concerned than its owner. “Are you gonna reply to your dad’s text?”

Violet’s gaze shoots back up to Sarge. She hadn’t said a word about Ronan’s desperate attempts to communicate his contrition to her in such shallow terms. “There’s nothing he could say to fix it. He can’t just take it back and expect everything to go back to the way things were. I know that’s how you think it works in your little Candyland world where everyone’s fucking happy all the fucking time, but that’s not what this is.”

Sargent’s taken aback. Not by her words, but by the way her chest heaves and the way her breathing hitches with every curse that tumbles from her mouth. He watches her, bereft as her face falls into her hands, fingers slid beneath her thick curls. He tries to reach for her, but she’s static, charged with something that ought not to be touched by bare hands.

“I’m just so _sick_ of all this back and forth. First, Dad wants to sort things out like civilized human beings. Take a week, he says. They’ll figure everything out, he says. Everything will be right as rain by the time I come home. And yet they take one single day alone together, and he comes running right back to Monmouth. Sarge, if they can’t go _one day_ alone together without me, how could they _possibly_ fix this?”

“God, I don’t know.” His mind fills with his own parents, so full of love for one another, their family's _constant_. His mother and father are so in love, they created their own little cupid between them. Indie wouldn’t be a product of anything other than love. It’s just not possible. It’s all he knows: those secret touches his mother thinks only his father notices; the way they look at each other across the room, sometimes rye with unadulterated affection, _oh you_ , like no matter how much they annoy each other, they’ll never get enough; the way his father greets her as _Jane_ , reverent, pulling her into his arms after a long day at work. Sargent knows he and his sister are a product of love and that will never change.

What’s happening between Ronan and Adam… it’s unfathomable. He doesn’t know what to do or say about it when all he knows is blind faith that everything will fall back into place. Fate has a way of setting things in order, one way or another. None of them ever thought that Ronan and Adam’s fates might just take a separate course.

And Violet’s…? Sargent can at least do everything in his power to help hers stay on course with his own, with or without her parents’ support. He wants what his own parents have with her, and Ronan and Adam are laying out the roadmap for a course set for disaster, a proverbial self-help book on how _not_ to conduct a marriage.

“Maybe they just need time…” he offers weakly, unable to salvage any hope for the situation that won’t make Violet’s skepticism rear its ugly head.

“Sarge?” Violet lifts her head from her hands. Her voice sounds small, helpless, broken. He's not even certain she's heard him. “Can we just get out of here?”

He drives her out to Cabeswater, under a litter of stars. The trees whisper to them, their branches knocking gently in the wind as if to welcome their prodigal daughter home. It’s a warmer evening here: a spring evening, perhaps, predicting the months to come. They press from ankle to shoulder up against each other, side by side. She’s melancholy beside him, in the grass and her body’s warm, thawed by Cabeswater’s attempts to appease her and Sargent’s letterman jacket draped over her shoulders. But he knows her heart is still shivering frigid with grief for everything that has not quite come to pass. There’s a premonition in her head, and none of it bringing good tidings.

He clasps his fingers in hers and they just lie there, content with the canopy of stars staring down at them as they gaze up. Beneath the glittering expanse, Sargent feels profound, like he’s precisely where he belongs: a constellation all on his own, meant to shine, right up there with them. Perhaps he’d lasso the moon with Orion’s Belt and bring it to Violet, let her control the tides and the fate of the universe hanging in lunar orbit.

But Violet pays no heed to the stars. Not when she’s already got one right in front of her.

She reaches across him with her free hand, obstructing his view with a palm and fingers that cup his cheek and coax his face toward her. Her touch is both careful and wanting and before long, her lips have claimed him as their own and he supposes this is a decent compromise.

The world turns on its axis around them, at its usual steady pace, while Cabeswater works its magic. Their grassy knoll becomes a field of heather, flowers sprung up beneath them: a soft bed for their quiet moon-lit affections.

Violet always kisses like she’s giving everything she’s got, leaves not a piece of her behind. She kisses like sex itself, doused in this heady need to crawl inside Sargent’s body and take up permanent residence, safe in the cradle of his ribcage with the comfort of his beating heart. She possesses that too, playing his heartstrings like her old violin she rarely ever picks up anymore, first fiddling with its frets in search for the secret code to keep him well in tune, then plucking one string or another, one gentle plink at a time before she sets off on her whirlwind reel, tugging at every valve, every ventricle of his heart until his whole body lifts with her.

She’s always ten steps ahead of him when it comes to this. It’s not been long, but she knows what she wants with him; has him firmly in her grasp. Physically, Sargent’s not so sure what _he_ wants, although he knows very well he wouldn’t let go of her now if his life depended on it. His hands never wander; not like hers do. They play along the safe spaces of her body: her face. Her hair. Her neck. Her sweeping collarbone. Her rib cage. But it’s not up to him to go any further than that. It feels like a step he’s not ready for; like he has to ask permission, and he’s too ashamed to do it. His mother always said if he can’t ask the question without overwhelming humiliation, it’s not his time.

But Violet’s hands are asking permission aplenty, rucking up the fabric of his shirt along his back, and he worries she wants too much too soon. They’ve been here before, only far too recently to be having this conversation again. He wishes he could give her this; give her the _world_ , but he’s not caught up to her yet. They’re not on the same page.

Kissing her… kissing her is enough right now, he thinks. Under the stars, he feels he’s done enough profound deeds for one night. He shines for her and does the best he can to show her how bright she makes him, here in his arms. She doesn’t need to prove herself to him. He doesn’t _need_ all those other things ordinary couples crave. He just needs her, here and now, right where she is. He just hopes she can understand when she wants _so much_.

“I love you,” he whispers into the night: his hopes for consolation for what he can’t give her. “I love you so much. I-“ He can’t tell her never, not when they’ve only just begun, and things change; bodies change; feelings change. And maybe one day, they’ll meet face to face, and he’ll want her as intensely as she does him and there they’ll be, staring into the void together. But tonight, her mouth on his neck and her fingers slid low to squeeze the pockets of his jeans (and when did they roll sideways together?), it’s undeniably pleasant, just not an overwhelming carnal _need_.

Violet Lynch is a wild animal; a feral thing, and Sargent’s just a housecat, looking to be petted once, twice, before boredom takes hold and he’s on to other things. Not that Violet is even capable of being _boring_. She’s just… too much. One day, her claws and sharp teeth will tear him to ribbons, just a small clot of calico fur under her paws. That’s the trouble with wild beasts: they never know when they’ve gone too far.

And so, he kisses her, and convinces himself that one day he will drum up the courage to let her claim every bit of him, the way she wants. By then, he’ll be ready for her, but not tonight. Tonight is for stars and hands held and sweeping kisses and the worst forgotten and just _love._

 

 


	19. Suspicious Minds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh Gansey...

Honestly, sometimes Gansey feels like he’s been living under a rock. It’s the price he pays for being such an old soul. He’s been a senile old man since teenagehood. Not that he’s particularly noticed this little nuance of his own personality. As far as he’s concerned, nothing gets past him.

Yet somehow, everything does. Every time.

He thinks he knows his family better than anyone. His children especially. They’ve always had a very open policy when talking about the important things. That was non-negotiable when Blue became a mother. Sargent, and later Indie, would grow up in an environment where they felt comfortable telling their parents everything. And thus far, Gansey likes to think they’ve done pretty well for themselves. Which makes these latest revelations that much more baffling.

How long has Ronan and Adam’s daughter (the girl he and Blue have raised as their honorary _third child_ ) been canoodling with his own _son_ right in front of his face? Since when was their blatant display of handholding a regular occurrence? The pair of them have been joined at the hip since infancy. How was Gansey to know their status had changed from conjoined twins to something a little less (or would that be _more_ ) incestuous? They’re practically siblings. Sargent held Violet in his lap as a newborn. Granted, he had to be propped up himself at the time, but still. They were _babies_ together. _Babies_. And in Gansey’s paternal eyes, they still _are_ babies. Barely yesterday, they were finger painting and sucking out of juice boxes. How can they be _dating_? How and when and what and where and _why_?

He laughs when Blue first tells him. Got a good chuckle out of that joke. _Good one, honey_. A real side splitter. He loves his better half. He loves her more than anything, especially for knowing exactly how to break the tension in this horrific situation they’ve been caught in. Nothing quite says breaking the ice like an out of left field joke about his son’s dating habits.

“Are you finished yet?” Blue asks, foot tapping and arms folded. Somehow between now and when she first dropped this bomb, he’s lost his endearing charm and she’s gone straight to annoyed. What in heaven’s name has he done this time?

He wipes a tear from his eye as he sits down on one of the high stools. “You’re funny. That was funny, Jane.”

Blue raises a brow. “And how is _that_ funny?” She’s got that _don’t make me force it out of you_ look on her face she’s practiced just for motherhood, but somehow always ends up using it on him most often.

He hums, still trying to contain any lasting chuckles. “Well, he can’t _possibly_ be with Violet. That’s ridiculous.”

“Oh?” Blue’s already expecting him to put his foot in his mouth. Yet he’s walking right into oncoming traffic without a single whit. “Enlighten me.”

“Well, because. Sargent’s _gay_ ,” he explains, relieved he’s gotten it out for the first time without any lasting trouble. He thought it’d be hard, bringing it out into the open. But there it is, and he’s proud. Proud of his son for accepting himself for who he is. Blue’s face contorts, showcasing a flurry of confused emotions. In that split second, she’s not sure whether to be horrified or to amused. Gansey’s face falls. “He _is_ , isn’t he?”

Blue’s taken a valiant moment to recover before doubling over with laughter, scrabbling for a stool to keep her upright. Her son places himself in her mind's eye: his big, broad voice, sweeping showtunes all over the house... his unusual and keen taste in fashion... his nasty habit of wearing his baby sister's clothes, no matter the size or amount of feminine embellishments... his complete lack of athleticism, favouring _theatre_ instead... Of course _Gansey_ of all people would leap to such stereotypical assumptions about his own _son_.

“ _Oh my god_. You are worse than I thought!” She rights herself, taking a deep breath to keep steady. “Honey, I hate to tell you this, but Sargent’s been in love with Violet pretty much from day one.”

Gansey frowns. Somewhere down the line, one of them has made a vast miscalculation. “No, that _can’t_ be right.”

Blue sighs, reaching for her phone across the bar. She spends a moment tapping away with her forefinger, then stops and starts back up again, this time swiping. “He made her breakfast in bed, Gansey.” She turns the screen so he can see her damning evidence: a picture from their son’s Instagram account of Sarge giving the peace sign over a plate of pancakes while Violet scrunches her face beside him.

“Is that not what gay BFFs do for their friends?” he asks, realizing his theory has rapidly lost its weight.

“I don’t know, Gansey. Has _Ronan_ ever made you breakfast in bed?”

Gansey’s frown deepens. “You’ve got a point.” Something complex is going through his brain now. Something akin to disappointment at knowing Ronan never thought to bring him breakfast in bed- not _once_ back when it was just the two of them in Monmouth. Doesn’t he deserve that much at _least_?  But no… he’s gotten sidetracked. “Are you trying to tell me, my son is _straight_?”

Blue lets out an exasperated huff. “Yes.”

“And dating his _sister_?”

She reaches up to pinch thumb and forefinger into the space between her eyes. “Oh my god. You’re making it worse.” And here it comes, the latest installment of how _am I so in love with you? How are you this dense?_ She wants to reach out and shake the sense back into him. “Sargent’s not the gay one and he’s _not_ dating his _sister_.”

Gansey’s head jerks upward at this statement. “What do you _mean_ , _Sargent’s_ not the gay one?”

Blue prepares herself for part two of revelations with Gansey, but finds she doesn’t have to delve into updates on their daughter’s latest adventures when Indie’s peel of laughter drifts through Monmouth. The very girl child herself. And she’s not alone. She stops her skipping in the threshold into the kitchen, hand clasped to her elusive paramour, still standing out of frame.

“Hey!” their prodigal daughter greets them, both enthusiastic and flustered all at once. “Oh my gosh- Mom. We just ran into Adam downstairs. Did you know he and Sam know each other?”

Blue’s gaze steals to Gansey. He’s mouthing Sam’s name at her in that perplexed way of his that reminds her he’s been left in the dark about this too. One revelation down… When neither of them say a word, Indie ploughs on, full speed ahead. “Yeah! Turns out, Adam was the lawyer who argued Sam’s case with Aglionby.”

Gansey’s chin jerks toward his daughter. “ _Aglionby_?” Oh, and he doesn’t even know the half of it… It looks as though Indie’s going to supply her own evidence to this latest shock, as with a tug of an arm, Blue’s frequent shop loiterer comes into view, clad in khakis and Aglionby blazer. The pair of them have done their nails to match, an assortment of colours, one for every finger: a rainbow between their adjoined hands. From the neck down, there’s nothing immediately alarming about the mysterious Sam. However, their face tells a different story. Their dark hair is pitched forward, fringe slightly obscuring their hazel eyes in a tapered v. They’re grinning, open mouthed, lips slick with gloss. To Blue’s eye, their makeup is a subtle art: liquid eyeliner, purple mascara, rouge. But to Gansey, it’s _everything_ all at once.

“You- so you two…” he stutters, unable to decide where to look. At their clasped hands? At his small daughter (who is also definitely still a baby in his eyes too, thank you very much)? At this strange person’s unconventionally done up face? “You guys are… _pals_?”

Blue slams her face into her palm from beside him.

Indie lets out a tinkling little laugh, too breezy to tell if she’s noticed anything amiss. “No, Daddy. Sam and I are _dating_.”

Gansey merely stares, mouth dropped open and Blue can tell somewhere in there, he’s internally screaming. She reaches out to touch his arm in reassurance. “Darling, Sam here petitioned to get into Aglionby. They had to take it to court.”

“And Adam took the case!” Indie pipes up eagerly, beaming back at the Aglionby student in question.

“He was really a godsend,” Sam speaks up for the first time and it’s the voice, far too high in pitch to be masculine, that throws Gansey off-kilter the most. “He was like _Superman_ , defender of teens! I couldn’t have gotten in without him. I didn’t know you guys were close!”

“I didn’t know _you guys_ were either…!” Gansey’s just about reached capacity with this information. Any other news and he might just explode. First Adam and Ronan, then Sargent and Violet, and now this…? He doesn’t even know who these people are anymore. What _else_ doesn’t he know? He tries to muster up Formal Gansey from the depths of his soul: the one he uses for his mother’s political campaigns and lectures on dead Welsh kings. But his mind is whirring with information and he falters. “My daughter is a child,” he blurts out instead. Blue backs off. This is all Gansey now. “She’s a very small fifteen year old child.” He coughs, straightening up in his seat. “I sincerely hope your intentions are honorable. She is a _child_ , you see.”

“Ooookaaaaay…” Indie makes a valiant effort to break up this tête a tête before its awkwardness becomes utterly unbearable. “Sam and I are gonna go hang out. We’ll be in the bedroom or the guest room in case Sarge and Vi are here making out.”

Blue holds back a snort at the look of abject horror in her partner’s face. He’s had enough. It’s about time she put him out of his misery. “Honey, why don’t you go to bed? It’s been a _long_ day.” Indie and Sam are already out of sight by the time she coaxes him off the stool and out of the kitchen.

From the safe confinements of their bedroom, Blue peels his tweed jacket off his shoulders. He releases a breath, relieved to get some respite from the insanity of this day that just keeps stretching onward. “Jane,” he sighs gratefully, reaching out to sweep his hand across her cheek.

She smiles ruefully up at him, proud that he survived such a barrage of information in such a short period of time. Take the good with the bad… Whatever hell’s going on with Ronan and Adam can be eclipsed by their children’s happiness, at the very least, jarring though it is. “It’s going to be okay, you know,” she reminds him. “Sargent and Indie… they’re just fine.”

“You think so?” Gansey, in all his melodramatics, isn’t so sure. And they all wonder where on Earth Sargent gets it…

She reels him in, hands pressed to the small of his back, tweed coat forgotten on the floor by their bed. “I know so.”

Blue’s up on her toes, awaiting a kiss, when Gansey’s brow furrows with its usual concern. “Should we be worried about Ronan and Adam?”

Blue sighs, drawing him closer, forehead pressed to his chest. It’s about time they stopped talking for the night. She knows if he catches a single word about trouble with Ronan and Adam, he’ll be out the door in a shot, not to settle back into bed until the wee hours of the morning. She just can’t entertain that level of insomnia in her house. They can’t keep coming to Ronan and Adam’s rescue. It’s high time they figured out how to get by on their own. “Leave them be for now, Gansey. They’ll do what they need to do.”

And for the rest of the night, it’s fine. Blue soothes him out of his state of shock with well-plotted kisses and a magic touch capable of unraveling him completely. She does well to make him forget all about the troubles of the outside world. Just for now, just for tonight. But in the morning, one more shock awaits, sitting in a manila envelope on his coffee table, abandoned by one frazzled Adam Lynch, too late for work to remember to snatch it up, out of sight, out of mind, from prying eyes.

A single morning’s blunder may just be the one thing to shake this whole family apart.


	20. Fighting Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone always warns to stay away from the raven boys... but no one said anything about the raven girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for homophobic language and profuse swearing.

I.

 

Of all the things to stumble upon, Gansey’s discovered the Holy Grail of his worst nightmares, staring him stark in the face. He  thinks nothing of it, finding this innocuous envelope, stuffed thick with paper, unlabeled. No name, no address, no descriptive words. He slides the stack out of its sheath, for a sense of its ownership and property if anything else. He doesn’t know what he expected, but whatever it was, it isn’t this.

This is worse.

 _Much_ worse.

“Oh god,” he sputters, one hand reaching for his windpipe, as if to choke off an obstruction in his throat.  He closes his eyes, hoping to god his early morning mind is playing tricks on him and he’s not seeing what he thinks he is. Yet his eyelids stagger back open and there it is: that single signature, mocking him from beneath his thumb. “ _No_.”

The manila envelope slips from his hands, unnoticed as he succumbs to the dark notion they had all hoped deep down they would never face. The papers flutter out from their confinements, a graceful whirlwind; a hurricane, threatening to uproot him on the spot.

“ _Adam_ ,” he whispers to the quiet of his empty sanctuary. “What are you _doing_?”

 

II.

 

“You’re doing _so_ good,” Indie coaxes later that evening, mascara wand in hand while she has Violet practically gathered in her lap. Under such strenuous conditions, one would think she’s trying to vaccinate a child with an aversion to needles. But Violet Lynch is an impossible test subject when it comes to makeovers. Indie’s got half a dozen bruises and a single burn on her hand from getting her into that halter and straightening her hair. She had to practically tie her down to get her to cooperate with the makeup. “Now just, look up…”

Violet’s chin lifts with her gaze and Indie can’t help but deflate with a hiccupping laugh. “Have you _seriously_ never done this before?” With her free hand, she reaches for Violet’s sharp chin and tugs her back down to eye level. “Look up with your _eyes_. Not your whole face.”

Indie’s smiling, patient and generous back at her with that trademark grin that both the Gansey-Sargent siblings seem to share. Violet knows for a fact, as she stares back, that this is a terrible idea from the offset. “ _Up_!” Indie’s coaxing is relentless. So Violet sighs and glances heavenward, just with her eyes.

“You’re not going to poke me in the eye like you did with the eyeliner, are you?” she asks warily, as Indie’s fingers begin to blur, closing in on Violet’s face with a slim black bottlebrush, right up against her lashes.

“Well, I won’t if you don’t try to punch me in the face this time,” Indie concedes, her grin taking on something teasing, even though her jaw may not be so fond of the memory in the morning…

“Sorry…” Violet’s genuinely penitent this time, guilty for all the scrapes she’s caused her diminutive friend. “I just… I like my personal space. This is too much.” And it _has_ been too much. Great, but too much. The introvert in her is ready to just give up on their evening festivities and just curl up with a book, door slammed in humanity’s face. She’s done with human interactions for the day.

They had slipped out after hurrying through today’s lesson, off to the mall to find Violet something a little less funeral grunge and a little more party-friendly. She can’t even fathom how Indie even got her into this monstrosity in the first place. But all she knows is after what felt like dozens of clothes from dozens of shops, Indie’s stuffed a glittery top and faux leather pants into a bag, alongside heels Vi knows for a fact she won’t be able to walk in. She feels ridiculous, all dolled up to go somewhere she’s not even remotely interested in.

“Oh come on,” Indie sighs while they’re out, doing what normal girls evidently do when they’re not ensconced in their boyfriends or magical forests who speak through them on a regular basis. “There’ll be Aglionby boys there… You _love_ the raven boys.”

“I do not _love_ the raven boys,” Violet hisses, resentful of this accusation. Where would Indie even get that idea?

Indie rolls her eyes, nearly jabbing Violet with her mascara wand. “Fine. You love to _torment_ the raven boys.”

Violet can’t help but smirk. “Well, now we’re talkin’.”

“If you wanna get all dolled up and just prank those boys all night long, Violet Lynch, that is what we’re gonna do.”

Violet sighs a breath of relief at this announcement. She doesn’t think she can stand one more second of putting up with Indie’s obsessive need to be _girly_. Violet is a skirt girl, sure. She’ll even concede to the vanity of liking her hair a certain way. But she’s not a girly girl. If anything, _Sargent_ is far more into this stuff than she ever will be. In fact, just last week, he had Indie do his nails a glittering royal blue before mincing off to throw on his latest abhorrent fashion experiment. Violet… Violet can hardly stand another person touching her, let alone picking out her clothes and how her face should look. But this is Indie, and she loves her. The least she can do is humour her while she’s offering up her quality time that could otherwise be taken up by her new _squeeze_ …

 “Sam seems nice, by the way,” she redirects the subject cleanly away from herself. Indie’s colourful new love interest had joined them for an hour or two after classes to perfect the hair situation. Of course, Violet was hardly surprised to find them overwhelmingly friendly –as is Indie’s type. A little on the shy, awkward side, and with a habit of shrinking away from Violet’s more acerbic comments, but otherwise, agreeable indeed.

“Yeah?” Indie ponders, finishing off with one eye and starting work on the other. There’s hesitation in her voice, as if she worries about what Violet thinks of her rather unorthodox choice in partner. “You really think so?”

Violet frowns. “Well, sure. If you like that sort of thing, I mean.” Her nose scrunches. She doesn’t mean to sound so dismissive. “Which, you obviously do. I’m just saying, you know… the whole… um…” She nearly bumps Indie’s hand away from her face as her hand reaches up to make its habitual sweep through phantom curls. Her fingers aren’t used to the silky soft sleekness of the straightener’s work. Her body no longer feels like it belongs to her anymore. Like Indie’s snatched it away from her and molded it into something new and unfamiliar. “…You know.”

Indie laughs, head thrown back and hands momentarily pressed backwards to keep from toppling in her mirth. “I know,” she confirms, eyes gleaming. Rarely is Violet so at a loss for words. Her quick wit always saves her from the most awkward of circumstances. But this has her stumped. “It’s _super_ weird. But I _like_ it. I like it a lot. Just like my brother is _super weird_ , but you like _him_ a lot.”

Violet considers. She’d jump to Sargent’s defense, only Indie has a point. “That’s true.” She purses her lips, wondering what valid questions she can ask to clarify the bizarre situation. Indie wants to talk about it. She knows she does. This girls’ night is as much for Indie to get this off her chest as it is for Violet to assert her independence early on in her relationship. Violet suspects this is in fact, more for Indie than it is for her. “Is it weird though? I mean, being with someone you never thought you’d be with?”

Indie raises a brow, carefully screwing the cap back on her mascara brush and stowing it away in her overflowing makeup case. “Is it weird being with a boy you never thought would love you back?”

Violet blinks. “That’s not…” Her face burns. “That’s not the same thing. I mean, it was a foregone conclusion…”

Indie eyes her carefully as she fumbles. “ _Was_ it?” She knows the answer full well. Every single member of their blended family (save her father, maybe), knew exactly what was going on between those two before either of them even knew. But did Violet genuinely search beyond her own introspective musings enough to see what she wanted was right in front of her the whole time?

She sighs, picking at her leggings that feel restrictively tight on her unfamiliarly sculpted body. “I don’t know. Up until three days ago, I would never have thought…” Violet’s head shakes, but her mouth splits into a smile. She’s gone now, imagining Sargent’s face and the reverent way he first said those three words, over and over again until she was sick enough of hearing it to push him into the mattress and kiss him quiet.

“Me too,” Indie agrees, and Violet doesn’t know if she’s referring to Sargent or Sam. She sucks in a breath. “The thing is… it’s _not_ weird.” Her hands reach for Violet’s and squeeze, searching for reassurance for whatever she’s about to say. “I kinda thought it would be, but then… there Sam was, like _oh! Of course!_ And things just kind of slotted into place, like it was meant to be and I just… never even stop to wonder. It’s just happening, you know? And I’m excited to see where it goes.”

Violet wonders if that reverent look on Indie’s face now, so surprised that she’s here, and that she has someone, is the very same expression she makes when it comes to Sargent… “And you’re not worried about the whole not being in a conventional relationship thing?”

“You mean am I worried about not being straight?” Indie’s head cocks to the side like a dog confused by an unusual sound. “I thought I would be, but I’m really not. Confused, yeah. But not worried or upset. How could I be, when I’ve got this great person who likes me exactly how I am? That’s not something to be upset about. That’s something to celebrate. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this psychic thing, it’s that love comes in all kinds of peculiar ways and I just… this is my particular brand.”

“Do you though?” Violet asks carefully. “Do you love them?”

Indie shrugs, squeezing Violet’s hands again. “Sure. I mean, I love you and I love Sargent and I love Sam. But they’re all very different types of love. I may not be _in_ love, but I love. I _always_ love.”

Violet can’t help but shake her head. “God, you’re always so wise beyond your years, miss Indigo.”

Indie releases one of her hands to raise her fingers in salute. “That’s me. Indie wise beyond my years Sargent. I see all with my third eye.” She jokes, but Violet knows it’s true. Indie sees more with that intuitive psychic’s eye than either of her two companions. Violet may be able to see into Cabeswater’s soul, and Sargent may be able to make magical energies louder to an explosive point, but Indie truly has _the sight_. She’s so much bigger than that tiny body she’s inhabited these short fifteen years. Her soul’s seen so much; must have stuck around, on Earth and otherwise for thousands of years.

And here she is, this girl who loves so profusely, so easily, sitting with her best friend, who knows nothing about loving another human being. She knows the different ways of loving Indie refers to, but the truest kind? She’s hardly gotten a running leap at it, and it still feels daunting. Like this feeling in her chest for Sargent; being apart from him, even a few hours at a time, might just destroy her before she even gets off the ground. She’s swimming in everything this boy feels for her, and what she can offer in return isn’t even a sixteenth of what he offers. And even that feels too fierce a burden to bear.

“Are we crazy?” she wonders aloud, leaning back against the lip of the couch.

“What?” Indie inquires with a bemused frown. “You and Sarge? God, no. Well, yes- for being you and being Sarge. But not for wanting to be _Vi and Sarge_. You guys have complementary crazy. I mean, you’re the quiet oncoming storm. He’s the obnoxiously loud theatre rat. It works. You guys are gonna spend the rest of your lives together. One day you’ll get married and have some beautiful babies together… That’s more than I’ll ever know about anyone I date. You guys are so _lucky_. You never have to wonder whether what you have is real, or if you’ll ever be alone again. Because Sargent’s _it_ for you.”

“Indie…” Violet warns, cheeks burning and gaze fallen to the floor with weighty interest. She can’t dare to hope… It’s all well and good to know for a fact that she will never want another boy as much as she wants Sargent. It’s another to assume that this is a forever thing. Not this soon in the game…

“No, honey. He _is_. And if anything should happen to you guys, you’ll fight for each other. _Won’t_ you?” That’s what Violet Lynch does: she fights. She’s been fighting all her life. For a singular identity away from her parents, for the attention of this boy who drives her crazy with want, for _herself_. For every wrong done to Indie or Sargent by kids on the playground who don’t _know_ them. “Come _on_ , you guys were practically _born_ for each other. That’s a love you fight for.”

And it is. And they would.

 

III.

 

When Sargent climbs the steps to the second floor of Monmouth, he least expects to find himself face to face with two total strangers in his home, giggling away together. He shuts the front door behind himself and realizes quite abruptly that the two girls before him are actually Violet and Indie, looking very much unlike themselves. Violet’s standing on wobbly legs, supported on Indie’s arm, clad in what looks to be tight leather pants and a sparkly hot pink halter top, cut in a downward facing triangle just below her bellybutton. He’s momentarily mesmerized by the creamy skin of her long torso before the one thing that threw him off completely hits him. Her hair. Gone are her boisterous curls in favour of fine, straight layers, falling just past her shoulders and framing her face. Indie’s given her a sleek black cat-eye coupled with copious amounts of glitter across her naturally rosy cheeks.

He’s taken one, two, three steps toward them before gravity fails him completely and down he goes, a newborn colt on awkward legs yet to stand upright without skittering. This drop dead gorgeous girl before him is _far too much._

Violet (or the girl he assumes can only be Violet, lest he’s been dropped into a parallel universe where Violet’s the type of girl who dresses up) lets out an uncharacteristic whoop of a laugh before losing her focus on her task at hand. Her ankle gives out from beneath her weight, twisting sideways on their five inch heels. And just like Sargent before her, down she goes too, legs spread before her, laughing herself to tears.

“Jesus, Indie. What’d you do to Violet?” he wonders aloud, unable to take his eyes off this ethereal minx of a girl who is _definitely_ not his girlfriend as he last left her.

“She’s a little drunk,” Indie winces unhelpfully, lifting a half empty bottle of peach Schnapps from the floor beside them.

“And _Mom_ knows about this?” He just saw their mother puttering about downstairs, utterly unperturbed by the two teens currently drinking in her living room.

Indie’s head does a lethargic shake from side to side. “We’ve been hiding the bottle whenever she’s come up.”

Sargent blinks, overwhelmed with so much change before him. He doesn’t know whether to berate his sister further for getting his already fragile and volatile girlfriend drunk, commend Violet for her newfound babe status, or comment on Indie’s latest hair revolution. He finds the latter is the easiest point to hit upon without embarrassing himself too dearly. “And your hair is _pink_!”

“What?” Indie’s face scrunches, vodka sloshing in its containments still in her hand. “Oh, yes,” she confirms as an afterthought. In fact, it’s not just pink, it’s hot pink and lime green: a neon sign with arrows pointing directly to her. Here she is, Indigo Sargent, waiting for her close up. Her long hair is swept up in a crow’s nest of braids, folded across her head like a Scandinavian doll. “Sam and I dyed each other’s hair. And Vi’s, though you can hardly tell.”

She settles on the floor next to Violet and reaches across her shoulder to pull a straight lock of gold hair back behind her ear to unveil a dark, wine coloured streak. In a rare moment of lucidity, Vi slaps her hand away with unexpected, moody precision.

“ _Oh_ … Well then.” He doesn’t know what to say to this. He wanders off for all of three hours and aesthetic hell breaks loose. Admittedly, he’s a little jealous that he wasn’t invited to the festivities… “Are you guys going out or something?”

“Indubitably,” Indie confirms with a generous nod. If Sargent’s not mistaken, his baby sister may just be a little drunk herself… “The raven boys are hosting a party tonight. And we’re going. No boys allowed!”

Sargent’s eyes narrow. Yep. Definitely drunk. “You’re going out. On a Wednesday,” he clarifies stubbornly. Being the eldest comes with a death-defying amount of responsibility, and he feels it keenly now with the foresight of impending bad decisions between the two of them.

“ _Yes_ ,” Indie continues to nod. “On a Wednesday. Sam’ll be there.”

Sargent can barely handle this. They’re under age, they’re drunk, they’re heading into the lion’s den that is Aglionby territory, full of bored, wealthy boys looking for trouble. Now his little sister’s mysterious new boyfriend’s going to be there? He doesn’t like it. Not one bit.

“Just let me get dressed. I’m coming with you.” Someone of the three of them has to keep their wits about them. God knows it’s not going to be Violet, and he suspects Indie won’t be able to handle the ugliest side of drunk Vi released out into the world, looking like the biggest femme fatale Sargent’s ever seen.

“No you’re not,” Indie insists. “This is a _girls’_ _night_ , Sargent! I’m teaching Violet how to be an _independent woman_.”

“Indie, she’s _already_ an independent woman. You don’t need to make her up, get her drunk, and throw her in leather in front of all the raven boys to teach her that.”

The nuance of their impending excursion is too deep to explain to her brother in her current condition. Violet’s already pawing for him, needy as anything. And this is exactly what Indie’s trying to curtail. “No, she needs to know how to be independent while in a _relationship_. You know, not to be swallowed up by the _romance_.”

Sargent blinks. “Okay… but don’t you think you’ve made your point? It’s been hours. She’s _fine_ …” She’s drunk, but she’s fine. He can already envision having to put Violet to bed later, maybe having to sooth her out of some drunken panic attack like the nights before. Vi didn’t even _want_ to go out tonight…

“No, this’ll be good for her! She needs to go out and unwind. Get all this crap with her parents out of her system.”

They bicker for another ten minutes while Violet reaches fruitlessly for both the alcohol and Sargent at the same time before it’s agreed that Sargent will drive them there, and he’ll be on hand if they need him. It’s not what he wants, but he makes sure Indie and Violet’s phones are on and charged and on their persons before dressing and ushering them out the door. (Blue’s given them a similar spiel from downstairs, supplying Sargent with water bottles and snacks to keep the girls sharp.)

Indie helps Violet out of the front seat of the car lest she collapse right there on the curb. She shuts the door behind her and Sargent doesn’t hesitate to roll down the window and lean out to say his goodbyes, making like an anxious mother seeing her kids off to their first day of school. “If anything happens, anything at all… You call me. Indie? You hear me? You _call me_. I don’t care how stupid it is, or how much trouble you’re in. I’d rather you call me than give our parents more to worry about.”

“Yes, Mom.” His sister rolls her eyes at him, already eager to whisk Violet off with her, into the din of revelers in this empty lot. It’s grungy, this place. Sargent tries not to think about the girls, out in the abandoned space, where empty oil-drums mark the perimeter and flashy cars bring trashy boys wrapped in glorious luxury, burned out by the boredom that comes with too much wealth and too much time. He wants to grab Indie by the wrist, stuff her and Violet back into the car and drive them home, where they’ll be safe and sound for the night and he doesn’t have to _worry_.

The thought eats away at him all the way home. He takes the long way, hoping the extra time granted by the scenic route will calm him down. But his mind is still on Violet, fragile, and still undoubtedly reeling from her parents’ latest arguments. She’s a spinning top, unable to stop her dizzying whirl.

God, why did Indie think unleashing Violet on the _raven boys_ would be a good idea? He has to go back. They have to come home. It’s the only thing to put his mind at ease.

The party’s in full swing by the time he pulls back up, squeezing between a bright red Camaro and a silver BMW- reminiscent of his parents’ wonder years. Bass blares from stereos. The prodigal rock star sons are off on a makeshift stage, playing riffs on electrified instruments and screaming in time to the beat reverberating around them.

He picks his way through the crowd, accidentally knocking enough mystery liquids out of red solo cups as he bumps into body after body. Everyone’s either too high or too drunk to pay any heed to the gangly boy in the newsboy cap. 

An elbow shoves into his side, nearly knocking the wind out of him when he spots them. She may be small, but with her new hair, Indie’s a beacon in the crowd, especially next to a taller form, sporting identical dye, albeit swooped up in a faux-hawk, the colours reversed so the lime green tugs up into the ridge of spikes.

This must be Sam.

A little different than Sargent anticipated, he’ll admit. Okay, _a lot_ different than he’d anticipated… Their cat-eye is spot-on identical to Violet’s, and equally as fierce. Their moves are every bit self-assured, a twist of hips that looks a pinch too sinful next to Sargent’s baby sister, whose raised arms join in this hypnotic dance. Had Indie said Sam was a boy? _Had_ she? He can’t recall now, and feels a little silly for making the assumption. The shredded gauzy tutu in neon yellow and pink over tight jeggings tells a different story from Sargent’s imaginings of whatever paramour he had in mind for his sister. Their chest is bound tonight, flattened under a black sleeveless top showing off long, lean arms and Sargent’s not quite sure what to think.

In fact, he doesn’t even have time to ruminate over this enigma before Violet clouds his better judgments. If Sam dances like sin, Violet’s in the midst of demonic possession in slow motion, arms raised like Indie’s, and her belly and hips doing some scintillating roll, the fabric of her glittering halter flapping up against her body and away as she moves. Her beautiful torso glows pale and bare in the moonlight and she’s so… unencumbered like Sargent hasn’t seen her in days.

Which might be a lot less of a concern if she didn’t have a raven boy bucking up against her. If she’s noticed him, grinding against her, she’s either too drunk or apathetic to care. In fact, there’s a handful of ravens circling her, letting her play ring around the rosy with their punch drunk hearts. _Ashes, ashes, they all fall down_ …

 Sargent’s had enough of this. He can’t stand the way they prowl, thirsty for a taste of this fresh meat who in any other circumstance, would turn the tables, hunters become the hunted. But tonight, she’s vulnerable and liable to do something stupid she’ll regret later.

He’s not the jealous type. Far from it. But he hates the way this smug bastard’s touching her, and the way the others fuck her with their eyes, scrutinizing her like a tart who will give them what they want without second thought. A sick feeling rises up in Sargent’s gut and he can’t watch this anymore.

He’s five seconds from approaching the asshole with his hands all over Violet’s body to give him what-for, when a blow strikes him upside the head and he’s suddenly hauled backwards with a violent jerk. “What do we have here?” a voice sneers over the booming bass. There’s a sickly laugh in his voice, the anti-Sargent. “Little faggot.”

Sargent’s heart pounds up in his throat. They don’t know what they’re talking about and he’s helpless to stop them from whatever they plan to do with him. A second pair of hands, different from the ones gripping the collar of his shirt, tears his corduroy hat off his head. “What the fuck kind of pansy wears one of _these_?”

“Please don’t…” Sargent doesn’t know what to say to remedy the situation before the newsboy hat is pummeled into the dust and dirt, and crushed beneath a steel-toed boot.

“Does that hurt you, nancy boy?” the second voice jeers, crushing his hat further into the ground beneath his foot as if to prove a point. He’s a big guy, is all Sargent can tell from his position. He’s not too keen to glance up at his face, with no knowledge of what they’ll do to him if he does. But he knows this is not a guy to mess with. Nor is the one at his back.

“What’s this one doing?” a third voice joins the tussle. “D’you lose your _boyfriend_?”

“You’re not gonna find him here, mate.” Someone in this din has an accent. British? Australian? Irish? Sargent’s not so sure, but he now knows for certain, he’s outnumbered. No making it back to Violet and Indie now…

One of them lets out a mocking whoop of a laugh, at once cutting to humiliate. “What’s he _wearing_?”

A cackle of guffawing laughs rises up among the heartless raven bastards. Someone kicks at Sargent’s shins, a direct attack to the sequined harem pants he clearly should have left at home. He should’ve known better. He feels himself keeling over when the one at his back lets him drop. He hits pavement with a shriveled cry to the choir of unforgiving laughter up above. Further slurs hit him again and again, uncalled for and _petty_.

_Help me._

“ _Hey_!” Sargent’s heart gives a hearty thump. He’d know that snarl anywhere. His head is too fuzzy to see the ambush, but there she is, come to his rescue for god knows what the tally is now… She had to run, parting the crowd with blows enough to match a goddess parting the Red Sea. When her shoes impede her process, she tears them off, still moving, and hurls one heel at the closest assailant. It hits him on the back of his head, catching him off-guard. He doesn’t have time to analyze the situation before he takes a sucker punch, right across the jaw.

Violet Lynch pulls back, unscathed and just getting started. She breathes heavy, thick from her nose like a bull in a china shop, provoked to destruction. She seizes two boys by the collar and slams them against one another to the tune of colliding skulls. The last one she hauls in by the hair and oh, is that a _whimper_? “You fuck with him,” she warns, barely a menacing whisper against his ear, “you fuck with _me_.”

Indie’s not far behind her, scrambling on the dusty ground to retrieve her brother’s cap and jamming it back onto his head with a hasty but affectionate twist before it’s righted once more. He blinks blearily back at her before she and Violet pull him up by the armpits.

“Oh my god, you fucking _idiot_ ,” Violet heaves as Sargent feels his back slam up against something plush and vaguely leather. There’s no bite to her voice this time, instead, replaced utterly with concern. Her fingers scrape gently along the contours of his face where he’d taken the initial blow.

“Is he okay?” Indie’s voice chimes in, breathless with worry, leaning into the back of the car from the driver’s side.

“He’s _alive_ ,” Violet confirms, savage with spite for the bastards who did this to him. “They kicked the _shit_ out of him though.”

“Vi,” her name gurgles out of him and he tries to reach for her, but his arm is too heavy to take orders. “ ‘m fine.”

She grabs up his hand in hers, drawing his fingers up to her lips. His vision still blurs, but he thinks he sees tears streaming down her face. And yes, he can feel them, warm and wet against his knuckles as she kisses every last one with the kindest of touches. “Of course you are, you absolute _dumbass_. What the _fuck_?”

“Love you too,” Sargent drawls, the words lethargic on his tongue.

“Fuck you. I hate you _so much_.” But she’s punctuating every foul word with a gentle touch here and a tender kiss there, to heal all wounds. That’s what love does, doesn’t it? “Don’t _scare_ me like that.”

 Somewhere in the front seat, Sam’s negotiating the car keys from Indie, as the only one of the three of them both with a license, and capable of driving. Indie gives over without further argument. The engine revs to life, a comforting purr as Violet settles in the backseat next to him. One hand darts out to card fingers through his hair, his hat slid away into the shadows under the front seat in the commotion. “You are not a fighter, Sargent Gansey,” she reminds him with a sigh, finally settled back into the seat. Her fury’s begun to ebb. All that’s left is overwhelming disquiet for this hopeless boy. “I love you far too much to lose you.”

“Well then it’s a good thing I’m something to fight for.”

Of course they both know she’ll fight for him every time, no matter when and where and why. She will fight until the bitter end.


	21. Letting Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gansey and Adam have it out. They come to some surprising conclusions on where to go from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you guys ready for a huge plot twist? ;)

Gansey dwells on it all day long. It lingers heavy on his mind for hours, not to be unwound and forgotten for a single moment. Not even in the midst of classes, stacked one over the other on his busy schedule. Not even discussions on old, trusty Glendower can slake his fixation on the way Adam’s handwriting loops over the dotted line. Phrases like _substance abuse, domestic violence,_ and _irreconcilable differences_ leap out at him from the pages seared on his brain.

He shouldn’t have read it. He shouldn’t have pulled it out of the envelope. He shouldn’t have even picked it up. He wishes he could take it all back. But it’s too late now. He’s opened Pandora’s Box and he can’t stuff the evils of the world back in again.

Knowing Adam, he’s thought a great deal about this. Knowing Adam, it’s likely iron-clad.

“God, Adam. You’re making a mess,” he sighs, envelope clenched in his grip, palms clammy with sweat. Everyone’s out for the evening, leaving him alone to pace his factory floors. He’s going to have to talk to him about this. There’s no way he’ll be able to keep this to himself and carry on as if he doesn’t know one of his best friends is intending to split them all apart.

Blue told him not to interfere anymore with Ronan and Adam’s affairs, but this? This must see the light of day before Adam does something foolhardy.  There’s no telling when to expect him home- Adam’s work hours are unpredictable at best, and lately, Gansey worries he’s uninterested in coming home at all. But he’s not the doting husband, waiting at the door. That’s Ronan’s job. Or should have been…

Adam stumbles in around nine o’clock. The kids are still out, _thank god_ , at some Aglionby party Blue assures him will be _just fine_. He can’t worry about them tonight. Not when he has Adam to contest with.

He’s thought about it for hours; prepared a speech as solid as one of his lesson plans. If only Adam will stop and listen… He can only hope…

“Adam…” His friend is instantly wary of his tone of voice as he corners him in the doorway. Adam’s had far too many entryway confrontations in the past few days. He doesn’t know what Gansey wants. Maybe he overheard him and Ronan arguing last night. Maybe he wants to step in, making grand gestures Adam’s pride will never allow.

 For once in his weary life, he’d like to come home to his daughter and have a _pleasant_ evening without judgments for his choices. He’s sick of being second-guessed. He loves his job, he loves his daughter, he loved his husband… once. Why can’t he be left in peace with all the good in his flickering world?

He drops his briefcase at the door, not even bothering to toe off his shoes. If it’s a fight Gansey wants, it’s a fight Gansey’s going to get. He can walk back out that door if he can’t give Gansey what he needs. He’s become rather adept at walking away from confrontation, after all.

“Adam, what is _this_?” is Gansey’s opening question to his empty courtroom, holding a manila envelope aloft. Exhibit A. Adam’s blood runs cold.

“W-where did you get that?”

“You left it on the coffee table this morning. See, I didn’t know what it was, so I thought there wasn’t any harm in taking a peek.” Gansey slides the envelope between his fingers, down one hand, right into the other, and back again.

“ _God_.” Adam’s breath hitches. “Gansey. Just… let me explain.”

Gansey’s laugh is cold. Empty. Like he’s been fixated on this all day, let the thought of it consume him, until there’s nothing left but the numbness left by an amputated limb. Cauterize the wound, Adam. Cauterize the wound before it oozes infection. “Explain? Sure. Explain to me why you’re walking away from this family. Explain to me why you’re spitting on everything we’ve ever had together.”

Adam shakes his head, fingers pressed between his eyes to stave off an oncoming migraine. “Gansey, this isn’t your marriage. You don’t know what it’s like.”

“ _I_? _I_ don’t know what it’s like to _fight_ for someone? If that’s what you really think of me, Adam, you really don’t know me that well at all.” Gansey can already feel his ready-prepared speech peeling away from him with every word. And they’ve only just gotten started. “Blue and I may not be married, but we know what it’s like to make a relationship work; to make a _family_ work.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Adam whispers, hoping that Gansey will just listen like no one else has these past few days. “Blue would never hurt you. Ronan… Ronan-“

“-is sick,” Gansey finishes for him, clearly trying for neutral ground. All it does is antagonize Adam further.

“ _Don’t_ make excuses for him. You weren’t _there_!” He doesn’t know how he can make Gansey understand. How can he own up to what Ronan did to him? How can he admit the truth? The bruises grazing his sides, the exact imprint of hands, the very size and shape of Ronan’s hands, gripped tight against his flesh, is too big a humiliation; too big a failure in Adam’s eyes. And what was he thinking, just then, when he let it all happen?

 _Just take it. Do whatever needs to be done to keep Ronan, right where he needs to be._ God… if he’d just pulled away, backed off, fallen asleep on the couch, maybe he wouldn’t feel that burn of scorn lancing straight through him. Or maybe…

Maybe it could’ve been worse. _Much_ worse. The bruises across his midriff suddenly feel small in comparison to what could’ve been. Could the alcohol truly do that to Ronan? Take him that final step down into the unforgiveable? He can’t let himself imagine it. It’s too horrible…

“I don’t _need_ to be there, Adam. I _know_ ,” Gansey hisses, knocking his glasses askew with a violent shake of his head. For a horrifying moment, Adam has a sick feeling that Gansey’s somehow found out. “I _know_ what you guys are like and I know what you guys have _been_ like in the past. It’s always the same. You _never_ try.”

“This was _different_!” Adam insists. He can feel his voice rising in his throat, already scratching its way out with sharpened claws, scraping his vocal chords raw in its straining volume. “Ronan’s never been _this_ bad before.”

“Because you _pushed_ him to it,” Gansey explodes, barking a string of words he never expected to say. But he can’t take them back now. “You pushed him over the edge and now look what you’re doing. Look what you’re doing to _us_!”

“For Christ’s sake, Gansey…” Adam starts in, exasperated sardonic. “I _told_ you-this isn’t about _you_.”

“Tell me it isn’t,” Gansey challenges. “You stand there and tell me this doesn’t impact all of us. Do you really think leaving Ronan will just magically _fix_ everything? Everything can just go right back to how it was before?”

“There _was_ no _before_ ,” Adam admits, voice gravelly with hurt. There’s something about him now that terrifies. Like he’s just crawled into his own body, a demon, speaking with his voice. “There was only fear and then one blissful year of respite before we fell right into the unknown and I’m back to square one. I don’t want to go home, Gansey. I _can’t_.”

“And what do you expect?” Gansey asks of him. “What do you expect will happen once you leave him? You’ll just move into Monmouth full time and just… cut Ronan out of all our lives? You know you can’t _do_ that, Adam. You can’t make us _choose_! And _Violet_! You can’t keep her away from Ronan any more than you can keep her away from Sargent and Indie.”

“I won’t,” Adam’s voice plummets right back down to a bare whisper. He doesn’t know what he’ll do with Violet. Ronan will want to see her. But so long as his husband and daughter are so angry at one another, he can’t let their paths cross. Ideas flick across his mind, have been all day, of Violet, and what’s best for her. “So long as she wants to see him, I can’t stop her. But not now. Not when he’s like this.”

“So that’s it.” Gansey throws his hands up in the air in hopeless vexation. “You’re just going to alienate your husband and daughter. You know- separating them is going to _kill_ them both. And I know that’s been a foregone conclusion all along- Violet being beholden to Ronan, but now you’ve really stuck your foot in it, Adam. Being away from her _will_ kill him. And the minute you choke off Ronan, you’re playing Russian Rulette with your daughter’s life. And ordinarily, I’d say it’s not my business how you manage your family affairs. I don’t give a flying fuck how you and Ronan choose to raise your daughter. But this is bigger than them now. Because if anything should happen to Violet, anything at all, it’s going to kill _my_ children. It will _kill_ them. So this isn’t just in _my_ best interests, or yours or Ronan’s. I’m keeping my _own_ children’s best interests at heart. Because I’m actually _here_ for them and their wellbeing. I wouldn’t subject them to this hell. Not in a million years.

 “It’s unconscionable what you’re doing to them. And I can’t sit back and watch you take it all away. These are my _children_ , Adam. They _love_ her. If you provoke Ronan into drinking himself to death, you’re taking her down with him, and Sargent and Indie with the pair of them. You will _not_ do that to my children. As their father, I _cannot_ sit back and watch it happen. They’re _my_ responsibility and I _will not_ stand back and watch you rip away everything they love.”

“Then maybe all of this was a mistake,” Adam sighs. “Not just me and Ronan. But this little dream of ours- of being a _family_ together. Maybe we’re just kidding ourselves. We can’t _be_ a family unit when half of us don’t know who we’re supposed to be without everyone else.”

“God, Adam. Don’t tell me this _now_ , when I’ve had ample opportunities to go elsewhere! Do you know how many times I’ve been offered a teaching job outside of Henrietta? Do you know how many times I’ve said no because my family is _here_ and I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you, Ronan and Violet?”

Adam can feel himself deflating. The fight’s drawn out of him. Worst of all, he knows where Gansey’s coming from. How many times has he wistfully browsed the job listings out in the big cities? How many times has his boss told him he’d be up for a promotion in a much more established firm if he wanted it? All he’d have to do is say the word and he could go, chase his dreams like he ought to have done all those years ago. He could have had it right now, instead of being blind-sided by Ronan and his desperate need to stay in his cozy little world of The Barns. Ronan was his security blanket. But no more. Adam feels he’s on the brink of leaping off the cliff’s edge. He teeters there, contemplating the jump. There’s no knowing what’s there to catch him on the way down. Something better than what he has right now, surely.

“I can’t hold you back anymore, Gansey. I can’t.” It’s what he wishes Ronan would say to him, but he knows he never will. He clings to his security blanket too tightly, without realizing the destruction he’s leaving in his wake by not letting go. “If this is what you want…”

Gansey sighs, crumpling like Adam’s just punched him in the gut. “Cambridge has been trying to woo me for years. I keep turning them down. With all this, maybe what we all need is some time apart.” He has to sit down. This evening’s revelations are too much to bear standing. And the look on Adam’s face…

Adam watches him intently, hunched over in the nearest armchair, face in his hands. “Is this what you want?” he asks. He can’t believe they’re having this conversation. It’s too much, too soon. Not three days ago, they were happy. Their _children_ were happy. Now, with a failed marriage staring Adam in the face and Gansey casually considering the grand seduction of England, nothing is as it was. Nor is there any turning back.

Gansey’s hands rub vertically down his face, exhausted and stricken. “I don’t know,” he admits. “The only thing keeping me here is you, Ronan and Vi. And if _this_ is what you want… to walk away from them, what’s the point in staying?”

“The kids…” Adam offers weakly. “My leaving Ronan isn’t any different than you leaving us. It’ll destroy them regardless of what we do.”

“Is this not a lesser evil, though?” Gansey wonders, mouth obscured by his clenched fists, elbows balanced on his knees. “You get what you want, I get mine. And the kids will still be able to talk to each other. It’s just… not here.”

“Not _together_ ,” Adam amends. His body is suddenly too heavy to keep upright under this strain. He slumps onto the couch, every piece of him undone with fatigue.

“No,” Gansey agrees. “But what other choice do we have?”

For just one moment, one blinding moment, he entertains the thought of following the Ganseys across the pond. He could take Violet and the six of them could live peacefully, out in the countryside. There must be a law firm willing to take him in Cambridge. Except…

Ronan.

If the thought of losing Violet now is tearing him apart, watching everyone he loves walk away will destroy him a hundredfold. He wouldn’t leave The Barns. It’s home. To Ronan, home is a place, with the nostalgia of a blissful rural childhood, and the smell of rain clinging to the grass and hay. The vivacious sounds of life all around- the moo of cows, cluck of chickens, the rooster’s crow in the morning… But to Adam, home isn’t a place. It’s the people he loves. It’s Gansey and Blue, Sargent and Violet, and little Indie. It doesn’t matter where he lays down his coat at the end of the day,  just so long as he’s surrounded by the people he loves and the people who love him. And Ronan… Ronan can’t offer him that any longer. Not when home no longer feels like a home and he can’t bear the thought of The Barns without seeing the dark sneer on his husband’s face, or feel phantom fingers tearing him asunder.

He can’t go home. Not anymore.

“What do we do?” he whispers, shaken to the core at tonight’s revelations. They just keep getting heavier the more he tries to pull himself out of this hole Ronan’s dug for him.

Gansey’s gaze across the room slices through him, melancholic in its realized truth.

“We let go.”


	22. Mother's Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To the surprise of absolutely no one, Blue Sargent is a fantastic mom.

When Blue left Monmouth for 300 Fox Way earlier in the evening, she had not expected to come home to chaos. She runs into the kids, fumbling through the front entrance to Blue Lily, Sargent’s arms wound round Violet and Sam’s shoulders to keep him upright. There’s a limp in his right leg and a tear in the knee of his eccentrically chosen harem pants. Some of the sequins running in a wide stripe down the side of each leg have pulled away from their threads and Sargent is covered in dust.

“Mom!” Indie exclaims from her position ahead of them, holding the door open for her ragtag companions. She almost leaps out of the way of her door duties in her surprise, leaving it to slam shut against Sargent’s already slumped shoulder. Blue takes note of the way her son visibly winces at the contact.

Who dared _hurt_ her child?

Sam shimmies up against the glass pane to take up the slack as Violet guides Sargent the rest of the way into the shop and Indie abashedly approaches her mother to address the situation.

“Do I even have to ask?” Blue wonders sardonically, watching Violet and Sam handle Sargent.

Indie bites her lip, reaching up to scratch the back at her head where the roots of her braids have pulled taut in their moorings. “The raven boys beat up Sargent,” she admits. “But it’s okay!” she hastens to add lest her mother fly off the handle with the wrong ideas. “Because Vi kicked their asses and he’s alright. Just a bit bruised.”

Blue huffs a sigh, following their path inside, where Violet’s giving Sargent her dozenth once-over since they made their swift escape from the raven party. He’s propped up on a bench against the nearest wall. His mother does not hesitate.

She’s down on her knees before him in a heartbeat, taking up his face in her hands to inspect the damage. He’s already harbouring an impressive shiner, black and blue and swollen right down to the cheekbone. His right eye is puckered shut under the flowering of colour and his lip’s split. “I’m sorry, Mom,” Sargent atones for something Blue’s certain he has no need to apologize for. He’s penitent in the way a knight’s penitent for not saving the damsel from the dragon’s fiery breath. Like he’s failed her somehow. “I just wanted to look after them. But _they_ got to me first. I didn’t even _do_ anything!”

“I know, sweetheart,” she croons, running gentle hands down his unscathed jawline then up to stroke his hair like she used to when he was a child, far smaller, and more vulnerable than he is now. His gaze is downcast with humiliation and she can tell this is going to eat him up inside for days. “You did the right thing. Look at me,” she coaxes, lifting his chin up so they might share a heavy glance between them. “You did nothing wrong. Okay? You didn’t deserve what happened to you. Those boys are mean and petty and don’t know how to treat other human beings. And you are stronger than all of them combined. Do you hear me, Sargent? You’re stronger than the whole fucking bunch of them.”

Sargent sniffs back a thick, ugly tear setting tight in his throat: a delayed reaction to the shock of his experience and nods furiously in understanding. “Mom,” he whimpers, throwing his arms around her for comfort before he brings down his walls and opens his floodgates.

“You are more of a man- no. More of a _human being_ than any of those boys,” Blue tells him, vehement in her truths as she presses him close and safe against her. She knows her son and he is _miles_ better than any superficial, privileged, _mean_ Aglionby boy could be. “You are kind and patient and thoughtful, and most importantly, you know who you _are_. Which is more than can be said for most of those bullies. You already have so much more than they do. And they’re just jealous because they’re lost and bored and desperate for something to do.”

His hands scrape at her shoulder blades, digging in for as much obtainable motherly comfort as he can squeeze out of her. She presses her chin to the top of his head. God, her little boy. He doesn’t deserve this. None of them deserve this. She’s raised him to be better than any raven boy and it shows. He set out to protect his sister and girlfriend tonight and instead, came home rewarded with _this_. Sometimes, there truly is no justice in the world when innocent children like Sargent get beaten up in the streets simply for what they wear.

“Hey. How about we get you cleaned up and then we’ll have some cake Nana Maura made. How’s that?” She can feel the weight of the gentle up down of his head as he nods against her chest.

Indie’s already gathered up the plastic wrapped plate of spiced cinnamon sugar cake their grandmother sent home with Blue. “I think we still have ice cream in the freezer,” she offers to help diffuse the tension as her mother helps Sargent back up. Blue sooths her hand against his shoulder, arm wound across, and squeezes him to her sideways as they walk. “It’ll be okay,” she assures him. “It’ll all be okay.”

Except up the stairs, past the front door of the first floor of Monmouth Manufacturing, and around the corner, everything is clearly not _okay_.

Violet and Indie stop dead in their tracks up ahead of Blue and Sargent at the tableau set out in their livingroom. Two broken men sit facing each other in armchair and against one arm of the couch, facing each other, but not acknowledging anything but their shattered thoughts, both grim in their tense contemplations. No one breathes, no one makes a sound. So still are Gansey and Adam, they could be easily mistaken for manikins, propped up for some sick prank. But this is no prank and something utterly unnerving has come between them.

Blue pulls herself out of the thrall of the silence, remembering her distraught son in her arms and the girls and Sam looking on with equal concern. She turns to Violet for confirmation, laying a hand on her cheek. “Are you going to be okay?”

Violet, blessedly astute Violet, nods swiftly. “We can take care of it.” She nudges her chin toward her father and Gansey, locked in their spell, unable to form the words to express how _someone_ needs to come to their rescue too.

But Blue understands. She gives her son one last reassuring peck to his brow before depositing him back into Violet’s capable hands and shooing them off. With a heavy sigh, she enters the arena without a single weapon but her keen mind and ruthless ability to snap her boys out of any self-pitying funk.

“Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on here?” she snaps at a reasonable volume, to avoid further upsetting the children.

Gansey and Adam don’t say a word for an unbearable moment, still locked in their morose trance. At long last, when they do choose to enlighten her, it’s a simultaneous, juvenile blurt of Gansey’s “Adam’s leaving Ronan” and Adam’s “Gansey’s taking a job in England” so quick and so eager to place the blame elsewhere, Blue has trouble processing these words all at once.

Brow raised and hands on hips, she evaluates how best to handle the situation. “Have you two lost your goddamn _minds_?” Best let them know they’re being immature children right off the bat… Her own seventeen year old _son_ has been more mature in one night than the pair of them have been all _week_.

She settles on top of an end-table at Adam’s elbow. “You-“ She points a stern finger at Gansey across the room. “…aren’t going _anywhere._ Not on _my_ watch _._ And _you_ -“ She swivels on her perch to address Adam, index still raised. “…need to talk this out with _someone_ before you make any rash decisions.”

The foolish man she loves splutters at her, utterly lost for words and hands raised as if to extricate himself from the situation. “So,” she starts in, making certain her disciplinary Mom face remains well in tact. “Who is going to take a nice long walk with me and who is going to make sure _my_ _son_ doesn’t need to be rushed to the ER?”

Just as she suspected, Gansey’s already jumping to attention at the very idea of his son being brutally injured while Adam remains quiet and pensive in his position next to her. He waits for Gansey to shuffle off toward the bathroom where Violet’s waiting on Sargent’s wounds before Adam makes a sound. “There’s something you should know first,” he admits in a drawn out release of breath. He stands and crosses the room a few paces to the very spot his best friend vacated, and retrieves a manila envelope fallen to a forgotten corner wedged between the second end-table and armchair. Wordless, he hands it to her, lips pursed and brows drawn into a pained furrow.

Blue’s hand hovers, uncertain what she’ll find once she accepts this ominous token Adam’s sharing with her. She steels herself, snatching it out of his hand before loses her nerve, leaving him to his wallowing. That’s not what Adam needs right now. Just as much as Sargent, Adam needs reassurance, and someone to listen.

The papers slide out from their confinements, thicker than Blue anticipated. She’s not surprised the sheath is printed with the official letterhead of Adam’s law firm. Yet it doesn’t take long to skim the paper before her sinking heart catches on _dissolution of marriage._ She glances up, staring wide-eyed back at one shame-faced but certain Adam Lynch.

“Does _Ronan_ know about this?” she demands at a hush, waving the paper wildly in hand. No wonder Gansey’s disconsolate…

“It’s what we were arguing over last night,” Adam admits. “He refuses to sign the papers.”

Blue lets out a huff of a breath, raking her fingers through her hair. “Okay. Outside. We’re talking this through.”

“Blue…” he tries with a bite of his lip. He’s not sure he’s ready for this conversation with her.

“Don’t _Blue_ me. We’re doing this.” She’s already tugging at his arm, no second choices here.

Blue drags Adam straight back out the door, down the stairs, through the aisles of Blue Lily, and right out into the crisp late winter evening. She releases him, whirling on the spot to face him. “Why the _fuck_ do you think this is a good idea?” She means no malice in her statement, but she can’t mince her words with him now. This doesn’t deserve a gentle hand. It demands explanation, and one that she can’t get without being the hard-ass mother she has to be sometimes.

It takes him several times before words form coherently across his tongue. “He violated me,” he admits, barely at a whisper, his gaze cast down to the Earth. He scuffs the grass at his feet with the toe of his shoe. He can’t look at her. It’s too shameful, too horrible. “He was completely drunk out of his head and he… _forced himself on me_ and I didn’t realize I didn’t want it until it was too late.”

“ _Adam_ ,” Blue breathes, all expectations of whatever she imaged he’d say withering away with his confession. She’s heard this many times before: from disconsolate housewives calling distress lines in the dead of night during the only moment they can spare while their abusive husbands are away; from young girls trapped in relationships with manipulative older men, convincing them of their worthlessness unless they put out like a good little girl… During her stint volunteering at women’s shelters and help line call centres, she’s seen this again and again. She knows the drill. “Why didn’t you _say_ something?”

Adam lifts his chin, the barest sign of confidence in his decision. “And would you have believed me? Would _Gansey_ have believed me? He’s my husband, and your best friend. I can’t- I don’t…” he purses his lips again, searching for the right words.

“Adam, Ronan needs help,” she begins. She lifts a halting palm to keep him from barreling through her words with insistences that Ronan doesn’t deserve anymore excuses. The words are lost on her- she already _knows_. “But if you don’t feel safe with him, you don’t owe him anything. Not a damn thing. There are other ways to support him than staying here in this toxic mess. We just want what’s best for you and what’s best for Ronan. And if what’s best for you no longer correlates with what’s best for Ronan, maybe it _is_ time you walk away.”

“But you and Gansey and the kids…” he starts, but Blue silences this too.

“We’ll be just fine. We always are.” Blue knows she has Gansey to contest with. She already knows he won’t take this separation lightly. They like having Adam and Ronan around and will happily keep Adam for as long as he’s willing to stay in Monmouth with them, but she suspects the moment he digs up the courage to fly, he’ll soar, far away from Henrietta and its dark corners crawling with the vermin of his abusive past. He doesn’t deserve to remember Ronan that way. Not if his husband can be scraped from rock bottom and built back up, a new man.

The children, however, are a different matter altogether… It’ll be a challenge, there’s no denying, but they’ll pull through. They’re the Ganseys. They always do.

“But you two… you two aren’t fine, and you haven’t been for quite some time. And maybe you can’t be happy together anymore. It’s okay to admit defeat and move on. It may not seem like it now, but we’ll be here for you whatever you decide. Even if Ronan _does_ sign the papers. We’ll figure it out. We’ll find a way to make it work.”

Blue’s words are a comforting change to all the ugly words and raised voices of the past few days. For once, someone’s listening to him, validating him for his choice to walk away from a bad situation before it can get worse. But after Gansey’s earlier speech, he’s not so sure they _can_ make it work. Not if Gansey’s even _casually_ considering packing up the family and flying off to the red brick halls of Cambridge when all of this inevitably blows up in their faces.

One thing’s for certain: Blue Sargent is the first person to give him permission to fight for _his_ needs. And to her, Adam’s beyond grateful.


	23. Gentle Nudge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam starts putting a plan in motion to protect Violet while someone has a few words of reassurance for an insecure Sargent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for awkward sex chats. NSFW? It's literally all hypothetical sexual content.

I.

They take the remainder of the week to recuperate. For four days, none of them see hide nor hair of Ronan Lynch. Probably for the best, given what they all know has transpired between him and his husband. Adam’s not interested in enlightening Gansey with what he’s told Blue. He can’t have too many people knowing. It’s too much. He trusts she’ll tell him exactly what he needs to hear to back down from his pedestal, no more, no less.

Violet… It’s no easy task, explaining this to Violet. Adam still doesn’t know quite how he’ll break it to her. He hold off, waiting to conjure an official label for exactly what he’s doing. A divorce isn’t a divorce without a second signature. And he can’t drop a bomb as big as a separation on his daughter without knowing for certain… Why break her heart so unnecessarily?

She knows something’s up, he knows that. His daughter is far too sharp not to know something’s shifted in the past two days. Adam’s been teetering back and forth between self-assurance, and crippling doubt far too often lately. He’s not exactly been subtle.

He promised her she’d be back home, at the Barns, safe and sound, their family restored by the end of the week. He promised her, and he couldn’t even last a day before running for the safe haven of Monmouth Manufacturing.

She deserves to know why he failed her.

Whatever anger she has over the situation has dissolved into general annoyance toward Adam, the majority of her rage redistributed, tipping the scales of blame far toward Ronan. He doesn’t know what’s changed her mind besides time, but he’s grateful to have his sweet little girl back, even if he’s the root of all her snarky comments. At least her sass is no longer laced with malice.

Which is why he thinks she’s ready for a conversation.

He catches her in a rare moment away from Sargent and Indie. It’s not nearly as hard as it seems, separating them just this once. All it takes is a gentle nudge to the smallest member of their trio to get Indie skipping off to show her brother her latest project. Whether this has something to do with clothes or cars, Adam’s not so sure, but Sargent follows willingly, and none the wiser.

But Violet knows.

“Hey Vi, how about we have a little talk?” Adam lures her to join him at the kitchen table as soon as the wonder twins are out of ear shot.

“If you insist,” his daughter deadpans, but sits without further convincing.

Adam folds his fingers together, all serious dad stance, over the wood of the table. “How would you feel if we went away for a few days? Just a nice little weekend trip, just the two of us?”

Violet eyes him skeptically, arms crossed over her chest.  She’s still in her previous night’s pajamas, her fair shoulders exposed to the cool late-winter air. She always did run incredibly warm… “Can Sarge come?”

Adam was afraid of this. “I was kind of hoping we could make a father-daughter date out of it. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to spend some quality time with you. I wanna make up for it.”

Violet doesn’t know what to say to this. She’s beyond being upset with him. It’s too exhausting. So long as he’s here, with her now, she can’t fault him for trying. Which is more than can be said for Ronan… But what he asks for she’s not certain she can give him.

Three days tops. That’s all it’d be. But those days stretch out to seventy-two hours. Seventy-two long hours away from Sargent. It’s more time than she’s ever spent away from him and the hypothetical separation is unbearable a notion.

“I can’t leave Sargent,” she insists, knowing in her heart of hearts its true. She doesn’t know who she is out there in the big, wide world without him. And she’s not sure she’s willing to find out.

Adam sighs, running his fingers through his hair. He remembers being codependent of his friends. Hell, if anything, he and Gansey and Blue and even _Ronan_ are _still_ codependent to a fault. It may as well be the very reason they’re all so messed up right now, chasing each other around different life choices that no longer correspond.

Perhaps he’s done his daughter a disservice in raising her precisely the same way, leading her blind into such a deceivingly comfortable trap. She won’t even know she’s caught up in it until it’s too late.

Much like her father before her…

“We can go anywhere you want. Anywhere at all. Just say the word and we’ll go.” He hopes this might entice her. They don’t often travel, their family of eight. Vacations are saved for summers when Gansey isn’t tied down with lectures and Adam has a week or two spotting here and there where he’s not buried in cases. But he’s taking a weekend, just for Violet. They might as well make the most of it…

She can’t stray very far from Henrietta. Cities pop into her mind unbidden and the distance from each to Henrietta stretches further and further away from Sargent. She’s tethered, a gold thread tied around her wrist, attached to Sarge’s heart on the other side. The further she flies, the tighter the thread will squeeze. Violet wears her own heart on her sleeve. No matter how much she tugs her cuff down, there it is, for all the world to see, and it beats in time with Sargent’s. A distance stretched between them will pull them out of sync and she can’t let that happen. Not for a single second.

She doesn’t want to go anywhere if it’s not with him.

“Come on. There’s gotta be _somewhere_ ,” Adam nudges, gentle, but keen. He knows her hesitance lies with a boy and quite frankly, he can’t blame her. Sargent’s far safer than Ronan ever was.

Violet slumps back in her chair, unsettled by the pressure pressed upon her. “I don’t know. Salem.” It’s the first place that comes to mind and she doesn’t think much of it.

“Witch town,” her father notes with a raised brow. Interesting. A thought strikes him and he’s suddenly grateful for his daughter’s thought processes. He leans forward even further against the table. “Okay. How about this: we spend a few days at a nice little B&B in Salem and then take a day trip to Harvard to see your dad’s old stomping grounds. What d’you think?”

Violet scowls, clearly done with the conversation. “Whatever.”

Violet’s wariness is but a small inconvenience. Because Adam Lynch has a plan and he’s going to make it happen. If not for himself, then for her. It’s high time he thought of himself and his daughter as an unbreakable pair and this will lay down the foundations for strength build between them.

Nothing will tear them down. Adam’s going to make sure of it.

 

 II.

 

Sargent stares intently at the computer screen, pretzel raised halfway to his mouth. He’s got a plateful of snacks at his elbow, nestled on the very same mattress he and Violet shared their inaugural breakfast in bed together. There are many other things they could be doing on this bed; things he knows Vi is only too keen to initiate. But something holds him back. Maybe because she’s too depressed or drunk at the time and he doesn’t want to take advantage. Or maybe because he’s just too tired, or they’ve only been dating for a week and he’s just not ready. Whatever it is crawls under his skin, a constant reminder every time Violet’s hands wander and her mouth becomes a little too insistent on his body.

He doesn’t know if it’s ever possible to be ready for Violet Lynch. She creeps up on you, unannounced and simply settles there, in your life like she calls all the shots and you have no choice in the matter. All that’s left to do is accept the lot you’re given, and appreciate this girl for everything she is. Which is _amazing_ , there’s no doubt about it. She’s worth more superlatives than Sargent can ever express. He’s so _in love_ with her, he worries one day she’ll burn him up from the inside out, leaving him mere bones, collected up in the dusty ashes of the aftermath.

But still. It’s not an all-consuming, _take me here_ kind of love. His heart yearns for her, but his body… His body picks up on none of the hints Violet’s dropping, unsubtle bombs though they are. He wonders whether there’s something wrong with him; whether his equipment just wasn’t set up properly during gestation and he’ll just never feel that kind of passion he knows Vi feels for him.

He wonders if they’re just not meant to be, and this is his body warning him before it’s too late.

Impossible. No one else could possibly make him feel this way. No one. Violet Lynch is the be all, end all of his eternal love. He can’t imagine falling in love with anyone else. Not when she’s here, and radiantly perfect in all her flaws. He wants to kiss her palms, trace the heart lines with the press of warm, tender lips, and teach her that even her most hated features are _so_ beautiful; that _she’s_ so beautiful. He wants to worship her body, and touch her, gentle, and kind, and sure of what he wants; what they _both_ want. But he doesn’t know how to do that when there are pieces of her that intimidate him.

He settles his laptop more securely on his lap, closer, to get a better sense of the impossible stuff he’s looking at. He tilts his head, tilts the screen, and _still_ can’t quite work out how this even works. “ _What_ …?” He doesn’t quite know where to train his eye on this image of jumbled, intricate pink contours. It looks like a grotesque, malformed mouth, hooded here, and beaded there. More complicated than anything he’s got.

He’s suddenly very aware of the press of the button of his jeans, up against his pelvis. What exactly is the appropriate reaction to a thing like this? Would any ordinary boy put his hands down his pants and get down to business to the very notion of what his girlfriend’s got, slipped, a quiet secret, between her legs?

His hand hovers there, but he knows that’s not the reaction he’s experiencing now. More than anything, a shameful sense of repulsion ripples through him and he has to click away from the tab on his web browser before he can let the nauseous sensation linger in the pit of his stomach. 

He tries a different tack, trusting his latest existential crisis to the knowledgeable hands of Google.

“Whatcha doing?” a voice jars him out of his reverie, out of seemingly nowhere.

He yelps, slamming the lid of his computer shut, heart pounding at being caught out.  “Jesus, Noah! Could you maybe _knock_ first?”

Noah Czerny hasn’t known the nuance of knocking for nearly thirty years now. He stands at the left side of the bed, waiting for an invitation to sit. Their resident ghost fixes him with a knowing grin. “You were looking at girly bits...”

Sargent flushes, utterly horrified and shushes him, indignant at his curiosities spoken out loud. He doesn’t need his sexual issues fanned out on the washing line with the rest of his delicates for all the world to see. Right at this very moment, he wants nothing more than to burrow down under the quilt and play dead until the world melts away. God, how _humiliating_ …

“It’s alright,” Noah backpedals, realizing how skittish he’s made him. “It’s only natural. And I’m not going to _tell_ anyone.”

Sargent lets his initial embarrassment pass before gathering up the courage to ask. “Noah, you dated before, right? Before you were… you know… dead.”

Noah forgoes waiting for permission and sits, stretching his legs out in front of him on the luxuriously wide bed. “Sure. But I didn’t really get to live long enough to really _do_ anything.”

“But when you were. Alive, I mean. Were you _physically_ interested in girls?”

Noah’s brow furrows into a deep v in contemplation, if only for show. Sargent knows that Noah’s dug deep down into his soul and can see precisely what he’s getting at before he even asks. “Well, I didn’t really have the chance to tell one way or another. But mostly… not really.”

Sargent releases a breath, comforted by this answer. “Is there something _wrong_ with us?”

“Why? Do you not get boners?” Noah asks indelicately. Sargent’s shocked into an awkward guffaw of a laugh at the crude question.

“No, um… I can. I mean, I _do_.” His cheeks flame up further, right up to the tips of his ears. “It’s just… um. Not with her.”

“Well,” Noah begins, leaning back against the pillows. He lets his shoulder blades dig in for an extended moment, _ahh perfect_ , before plunging on. “At least you’re not broken. Maybe you’re just not sexually attracted to her.”

Sargent’s not too sure _not_ _broken_ and _not sexually attracted_ are mutually exclusive. But he needles Noah for answers while he has him. “But I _love_ her. Like… I’m _in love_ with her.”

Noah takes a shining moment to _aww_ over Sargent’s profession of love before carrying on. “You can be in love with someone without being sexually attracted to them.”

Sargent bites his lip, unconvinced. “Are you sure?”

Noah sighs. “Love isn’t sex. And sex isn’t love. You can feel one or the other, or both. Doesn’t make your feelings for Violet any less valid…” He shrugs, as if this statement holds the simple answer to the world’s biggest questions. A silence blankets over them for an extended moment. Noah’s feet sway back and forth, windshield wipers for an invisible convertible. “Sargent, do you _want_ sex?”

Sargent blinks, cheeks still pinked with this awkward conversation he didn’t particularly want to have with _anyone_. As far as people go, Noah’s not the worst person to talk to about this… He’s not Sarge’s father, after all. And he’s certainly not his girlfriend’s father… _either_ of her fathers… And on first appearances, he’s Sargent’s age, perpetually stuck on a feedback loop, playing the scratch of the same song year after year. Did anyone ever give _him_ this talk before all of it became null and void to him?

“I want Violet,” he replies simply, and it’s the easiest answer he can give. He wants _her_. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Yes, but do you want _sex_ with her?”

“I want her to be happy,” he huffs. His hands curl around the edge of his computer, warming in his lap. “I want to make sure she’s satisfied. With me.”

“So, what are you trying to say?” Noah pushes gently. He knows what he’s trying to say; he just wants Sargent to hear it for himself, out of his own mouth.

“I want… I want to _please_ her. Even if I might not…” he bites his lip.

“Appreciate it yourself?” Noah aids.

“Something like that,” he admits. “Is that bad? Not wanting what she wants?”

Noah lets out a laugh, small, but encouraging. “But you _do_ want what she wants. You just don’t want it for yourself. You want it for _her_. And that’s not bad at all! That’s pretty selfless, dude.”

“I don’t _feel_ very selfless. I just feel silly.”

Noah shifts his position against the pillows again, this time, so he’s facing his troubled companion. He presses a cold hand to his shoulder and squeezes. “Sargent, you’re not broken. _Or_ silly. Well… a little silly. But not about this. You’re just not sexually inclined. There’s a word for that.”

“Really?” Sargent asks dubiously. His chin lifts to attention nonetheless, fingers gripping the ridge of his laptop tighter in swelling anticipation. “What?”

Noah’s mouth twists into a serene grin. “Asexual.”


	24. Well Intentioned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue and Gansey deal with Violet and Sargent's relationship very differently. Sargent doesn't know which of his parents is more embarrassing...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for more sex talk and a shit ton of second hand embarrassment. >:)
> 
> Steel yourselves because Chapter 25 is probably going to be a _nightmare_.

Violet wanders out into the hall the next morning to face a Sunday breakfast, firmly pressed into Sargent’s side with his arm flung wide around her shoulders to reel her in. Her hand reaches up to clasp the fingers that dangle there as they walk. She doesn’t know what the hell happened to Sargent yesterday, but something’s changed. Like all the intricate cogs that make up Richard Campbell Gansey IV clicked inside him and he now knows who he is and exactly where they’re going as a couple. His eyes are ablaze with determination, an end goal clear in sight. Her body still tingles from that moment after finishing off her conversation with her dad yesterday, how he caught her full bodied by the waist and dipped her into the deepest kiss he’s ever bestowed. For once, she’s the one slow on the uptake and it takes a beat for her arms to wind around his neck and her yelp of surprise to melt placid against his lips.

When he finally releases her, he raises his fists in the air like a heavyweight champ, a gleeful whoop bursting out of him, quickly followed by a befuddling cry of “I’m not broken!” He dissolves into elated laughter he can’t contain once he gets going, breaking up his blissful hysteria with quick pecks to her confounded mouth. “You hear that, Vi? Not. Broken. _I’m_ _not broken_!”

Violet furrows her brow, still no closer to figuring out what the hell kind of epiphany he had while she’d left him alone to his own devices for a simple hour or two. “Yeah, I got it. You’re not broken. Sure. You’ve definitely rattled a screw loose though.” She leaves him alone for three seconds and suddenly he’s Rocky Balboa… She half expects him to break into ‘Eye of the Tiger’ at any moment.

His shows of affection for her now are no different, not even as they join Sargent’s parents in the kitchen. Blue beams at them from her position by the stove, the inviting smell of eggs and bacon wafting up around her as she greets them with a good morning. Their interest in edible enticements fall away to Sargent’s distracting kisses along her brow and peppering into Violet’s hair and tracing her cheeks and eyelids…

The patriarch of the household lets out a disruptive cough to spring them apart. They turn in tandem to acknowledge him, Violet still tucked up against Sargent’s chest and Sargent’s arms pressing her close to him and home, where she belongs. Gansey’s already gone back to his morning coffee, and stares a little too intently at his newspaper, unfolded and propped up to obscure his face.

Sargent and Violet both know Blue and Gansey mean well, but they can’t help but notice how strangely the pair of them have been acting around them. Perhaps it’s to be expected. They didn’t exactly come out and break the news of their relationship gently to anyone. Rather, they simply stepped out the next morning, holding hands and being altogether more _cuddly_ than usual. The breaking down of the inauspicious walls of the ordinarily prickly Violet Lynch was clearly a impressive feat, if the way the Gansey-Sargents have been watching her lately would suggest. It’s as if Sargent’s brought home a complete stranger, identical in every way to his best friend, yet somehow gentler and less likely to put up a fight whenever he presses up against her.

Gansey finally sets down his paper, rustling the wide spread shut and casts it aside next to a half-drunk glass of orange juice. His glasses have slunk down his nose and he looks impossibly paternal in the scene at hand. He leans up against his elbows, gaze firmly fixed on Violet with something akin to befuddlement, as if he can’t quite work out this new stranger in his house.

“Violet, can I ask you-“ He peels his glasses off his face and lets them dangle in his grip, one hinged arm held between his fingers. Violet eyes his impending request with an extra dollop of wariness as she slides onto the nearest bar stool, Sargent’s fingers digging into her shoulders from his position, hovering behind her. They are impossibly inseparable, and only now does this irk Gansey’s sensibilities. “What are your intentions with my son?”

Sargent’s hand freezes. “ _Dad_ ,” he warns, knowing full well this could only end in embarrassment for them all. He may know a thing or two about melodrama, but only because Gansey’s unwittingly shown him the ropes.

“No, I need to know,” his father replies, one arm slung over the high back of his stool.

Violet’s lips press into a thin line, arms crossed over her chest. Blue stands with her hands on her hips further in the depths of the kitchen, waiting for her partner’s latest foolishness. _This should be good…_ “Gansey, I-“

“That’s _Dr._ Gansey, to you,” Gansey interrupts his own goddaughter, as if he hadn't been a key figure in raising her these past sixteen years of her life.

Sargent slips a pleading glance to his mother, who simply tips her hands into a shrug as if to say _this is none my business_.

Violet brow furrows. “You’re practically my _father_. I’m not calling you that.”

“But am I your father because you plan on marrying my son or because you’re practically his sister?”

“ _What_?” The exclamation rings out between both teens in the room.

“Look, Dad. This is out of hand,” Sargent bursts, unable to handle the awkwardness of the situation. “All I know is, I love Violet and Violet loves me-“

Violet makes it difficult to ignore her sassy sing-song rejoinder of, “K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” said undoubtedly to ruffle Gansey’s feathers further.

“Don’t be cute,” Sargent sighs, squeezing her shoulder. Any other time, he’d swoop down and smack a sloppy kiss to her cheek as payback, but it’s neither the time nor place.

“But _do_ you?” Gansey pushes, pinning her with his gaze. “Do you love my son?”

Blue’s tongue clicks impatiently in the background, as if to express the obviousness of the question.

Sargent worries Vi means to carry on sassing his father for the fun of it, her little way of diffusing the tension by exacerbating the situation. “Look, yes, I love your son, okay? Yes, I love him so much. He’s the moon and the stars. And whole fucking galaxies, alright? He makes me feel so small because he’s this big fucking star pulsating through space. Is _that_ what you want to hear?”

Gansey eyes her skeptically, unable to untangle her sincerity from her sarcasm. After a moment of pressing his chin in his hands, he takes a different tack. “Will you make him happy? Will you promise to make my boy happy?”

This time, Vi fends off Sargent’s interjection of _Dad_ …! without a single moment’s hesitation. “Of course. I mean, I can’t promise that I won’t be a snarky, brooding bitch who probably doesn’t deserve him, but if he’s happy, _I’m_ happy.”

“And let’s not forget it takes a _lot_ to make Violet happy.” Sargent recovers neatly from his embarrassment, reaching for his girlfriend’s hand over her shoulder again. Long, slender fingers curl around his, safe and sound. Here they are, this united front against the world.

“Alright…” Gansey concedes, still utterly unconvinced, but willing to move on. He leans against the bar, gaze turned to his son. “Richard Campbell Gansey the fourth,” he poses Sargent’s given name to him as if he’s addressing a jury. “What are your intentions with my goddaughter?”

If Sargent were of a less mellow temperament, he would have kicked something by now. “Oh my god, Dad. _Please_ stop.”

“I think you should answer his question,” Violet cuts in, chin tilted to glance up at him. She’s got that sneaky grin on her face like she’s got ulterior motives. Oh how the tables have turned.

His cheeks burn. “Well, um… I. I mean, I obviously love her.”

“ _Obviously_.” Violet rolls her eyes unhelpfully in front of him. Sargent begins to suspect the pair of them have been plotting against him all along and this is just Violet and his father’s way of getting a good laugh out of their morning. “Come on, Stretch. Tell us something we _don’t_ know.”

“Well, I mean. I don’t plan on having sex with her, if that’s what you’re worried about.” An unusual outburst of laughter escapes from his mother’s general direction. “But if I did, I’d make sure I was careful with her. That she’d be okay. And stuff…” It’s a hurried add-on, the kind that would ordinarily come after telling someone he _had_ intended to sleep with his goddaughter.

Violet’s squeeze of his hand is not a tender one. In fact, it bites where her nails dig in to shut him up before he makes a _complete_ fool of himself. Belatedly, Sargent’s grateful his sister isn’t here to witness this train wreck of a conversation. He has a sneaking suspicion Vi’s going to skip off to tell Indie all about it in salacious detail the minute she gets a chance. He’s glad everyone can laugh at him at his expense…

Gansey’s looking at them both like he hadn’t expected this topic to take such a turn. “She’s _sixteen_.”

“ _Yes_ …” The pair of them are fully aware of how old they are and what that means for their relationship. It’s still new and they’re still young. They have the world ahead of them.

“Are you expecting me to wait until marriage?” Violet asks sardonically, clearly uninterested in that sort of commitment. In fact, she seems rather bored by the prospect of waiting. Sargent’s hardly surprised. “You know, girls have _needs_.”

Sargent’s mouth dries up. Busying himself with retrieving a glass of water sounds like a splendid idea right about now… Whatever his mother thinks of this twist in the conversation, she’s wholeheartedly in Violet’s corner. Without a single sound, she opens a cabinet behind her and pulls out a glass, which she hands to her son with a knowing wink. He accepts it and busies himself with filling it with cold water chilling in the fridge.

“Girls… girls… well, that’s completely beside the point.” Violet Lynch has Gansey, the king of this castle, utterly flustered now. “What I’m saying is you’re very young.”

“And… you don’t trust your son to take care of me?” she shoots back, elbows drawn up on the table. They stare each other down, leaned forward over the bar, as if seconds away from challenging one another to an arm wrestling match instead of this verbal spar. _That_ Sargent would like to see… “Do you think I can’t take care of myself? That I have poor judgment? Are you _slut shaming_ me, sir?”

Sargent no longer knows whether she’s being a teasing little shit or a disgruntled, hard-ass feminist, but the upper hand has tipped right over to Violet’s favour.

“I didn’t say anything of the sort!” Gansey begins to backtrack. His eyes find Blue’s across the room and god, he can't help but see her work all over this fiery creature sitting before him. Flashbacks of cutting accusations burn into the forefront of his mind and for a horrifying moment, it’s not Violet Lynch staring him down, but a teenage Blue Sargent, accusing him of calling her a prostitute the very day they met. He’s been grateful for that uncomfortable exchange every day hence, but still, his foot-in-mouth disease seems to have only gotten worse a full generation later.

“Maybe I wanna have sex with your son. Maybe I wanna do it more than once. Maybe I wanna do it every day for the rest of my life.” She’s fiercely determined now, Violet Unfiltered. No one faces this Violet and makes it out alive.

Sargent’s stopped finding this funny. “I’d marry her one day,” he blurts, if only to swerve this discussion right out of the way of impending disaster. “I’d marry her tomorrow if I could.” He takes a large swig from his glass, if only to avoid owning up to his latest outburst. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it. That it wasn’t the first thing that popped into his head when he realized his feelings for her. That he didn’t imagine a whole life with her: the white picket fence and the house with two point five kids and a dog… That Violet wouldn’t look positively radiant in a white dress. There’s no denying he wants a life with her. Hell, he _has_ a life with her right now. But one they could call theirs, something built up between them, without the complicated entanglements of arguing parents. Just them, taking on the world- nay, the _universe_ together.

Gansey’s rendered speechless at this announcement. As odd as it sounds, he and Violet’s testimonies finally align. They have a forever kind of love, one that Gansey can appreciate, weird though it is.

Blue finally pushes off from against the counter by the stove. “Hey, can I speak to you two for a minute?” She beckons the two teens with the crook of her finger, giving them no choice but to break up this painful conversation in favour of… well, something else. _Anything_ else would be less painful than this.

She sits them down in the living room, where she disappears down the hall for an extended moment, before reappearing with a canvas bag hooked over her shoulder. “In light of your new relationship- congratulations, by the way. I could not be happier for you- I have a little something for you both.”

Blue settles, perched on the very edge of the ottoman facing them across the coffee table. Her arm burrows up to the elbow into the mouth of the bag and pulls one after another, two compact packages, cuboid in shape. She hands one to Violet and one to Sargent. It takes a moment for the weight of the gift to sink in.

Violet remains in quiet contemplation, turning the box over in her hands while Sargent finally twigs and drops his own in fumbling hands. “ _Mother_!” he exclaims, horrified. Violet’s words about wanting to have sex with him not a moment before burn, a brand of the permanent kind, on his brain. “These are _condoms_!”

“Yes, they are,” Blue confirms, all serious business. Not even a titter of a laugh. No gag gifts here.

“These ones are hot _and_ cold,” Violet notes absently, reading the label on her packaging, designed with a swirling hybrid of frosted ice and raging heat slapped to the front.

“Why would they be _both_?” Sargent’s voice comes out at a desperate yelp to which Violet simply grins.

“Sensation, darling,” Blue hints, calm and precise. He wonders if she’s rehearsed this for years, waiting for the very moment her children became sexually aware enough to have this conversation. She waves a hand, dismissing the finer details of Violet’s box of condoms. “The point is, if you two are thinking about it, I want you to be safe.”

“ _Mom_ … I don’t… I can’t…” Sargent’s prior excitement about finding a label for his sexuality suddenly feels overcast by this pressure left by both his mother and girlfriend to _perform_. And his newest title is far too recently bestowed to explain. Violet may be calm and collected, taking in all this information with poised ease, but Sarge’s heart runs a mile a minute. He suddenly realizes how Violet feels in the midst of a panic attack. Because this, bubbling up now, is it.

“Honey, I don’t care if you’re starting now or in a month from now. Or even in a _year_ from now. I want you both to know your options.” Blue’s latest spiel suggests there are plenty more contraceptives to cover. She pulls a book out of the bottom of her bag and hands it to her son.

The images on the cover and over the flipped pages blur in his vision as he accepts his mother’s offering. Her voice comes muffled and far away as she narrates a diagram or two. He recognizes a word here or there from a Wikipedia search he’d done on female anatomy the day before, but it doesn’t help matters.

Violet’s asking questions beside him, her index finger joining Blue’s on the page, book now settled on the coffee table. Their conversation carries on, dynamic and picking up in enthusiasm as they go. He hates to say it, but he almost wishes his father would barge back in with his interrogations on intention. He’s surprised Gansey hasn’t overheard. If he’s eavesdropping, he would have crashed into the living room long before this.

It’s not that he’s adverse to sex, or even that Violet’s interested. He just doesn’t know how to bypass this anxiety in his chest. He doesn’t know how to even have this conversation with her. How can he even begin to explain to her how sex repulsed he is, yet how eager he is to give her what she wants? The more he thinks about it, the more he worries he can’t have it both ways.

Or maybe… maybe he’s just not ready yet. He’d love to explain away the rocks gathered in his gut as something to be washed away with time, carefully sanded down the more he learns about her body and what she likes. This will pass, right? It has to. Otherwise, he’s not so sure they’ll make it out on the other side unscathed.

Something's got to give.


	25. Molotov Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes four days to break Ronan Lynch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for extreme angst, sex (nothing graphic), alcoholism, and profuse swearing.
> 
> Here's what's going to happen, guys. I'm posting this with the full intentions of writing up chapter 26 and 27 immediately so you won't have to wait long for an update. Because this is the type of cliffhanger you don't want to be left dangling from and I empathise with your pain. I will mark up the angsty chapters with plenty of warnings in case any of you want to hold off until there's some form of closure. (I totally understand if you do.) Just know we'll probably get it by the end of the week(end) at least.
> 
> This chapter and the subsequent chapter will hurt. And while I unapologetically love breaking hearts, I am sorry about this one. It's just what needs to be done to drive the plot forward. I give you plenty warning in case you need to brace yourselves or prepare to wait it out for later chapters.

 

Day 4.

 

Ronan hasn’t been sober in days. Every hour blurs together like a mirage, hailing from the deepest depths of Virginia’s hottest summers, even in the middle of this harsh winter icing over his heart. It cracks under the frigid constrictions, frozen solid, until it crumbles into brittle red pebbles in hand: shining crystalline blood droplets, liberated by torpid fingers, into pure snow. He has nothing left of himself to give. Chainsaw caws at his shoulder, but even now, she’s weak. She wheels, round and round in the sky, like she can’t quite stay airborne, but still struggles to keep herself alight, working against the wind with desperate wing beats.

Ronan knows how she feels. He’s not himself and neither is she.

As he stands before Monmouth Manufacturing, hooded and head tipped toward the first floor bay window, and the happy family gathered beyond it, he knows he can’t take this anymore. He can’t stand idly by while they continue on cultivating their pleasant life together, his face cut out of all their photographs as if he’d never been there at all.

They need to know what they’ve done to him…

 

Day 1.

 

That first night, he left Adam, cursing his name and his fucking divorce papers. Tamed the BMW with shaking hands, violent with his latest fight and flight. He drives to Cabeswater, welcomes the spitfire Latin that does not whisper, but roars at him, trees rattling against hurricane gales, hard enough to split them in two. A ripping gun shot crack sounds ten feet above him as he storms through the forest, breath coming heavy through his nose and a branch, thick enough to be a decent sized tree in and of itself, lands in the clearing mere meters from his feet.

Cabeswater knows his anger too. And its boxing him in.

He clambers over the fallen log, one knee bent, an explorer’s pose, claiming a tract of land meant for peaceful natives who shared it first. He comes with plague and pestilence and intends to eradicate all that prospers around him until everything is under his command once more. A glass bottle of amber spirits sloshes in his left hand as he lifts it and downs a slug of Jack.

He’d almost gone a whole day sober. For Adam. For Violet. But in the end, none of it matters. He’s losing them both anyway. Adam’s hell bent on keeping him at bay. And for what?

When he screams, the world screams around him, a deathly echo of Chainsaw’s screech and the storm's howls. The bottle of whisky shatters against the bark of a nearby tree as he hurls it as hard as he can. The tawny liquid soaks into the wood, a disguise of sap dribbling down the trunk; cuckoo in the nest.  

He leaps from the splintered log, regretting this action in his fit of anger. That’s all the alcohol he had and Cabeswater’s not willing to deliver. Not this time. Instead, it offers up a begrudging compromise of a soft, mossy bed, beneath the bending canopy of tree branches to protect him from the tempest’s worst. But it offers him no further comfort. Not tonight.

His knees buckle beneath him, fingers clawing at the earth. The moon hangs full, a glowing orb on its blackened canvas, awaiting her lycanthropic child’s return. Ronan readily obliges, and keens, head bent skyward. Dirt rimes his face in thick, ugly streaks where he’s blotted out his tears with agonized knuckles. His mind falls to Violet, tiny and bawling, ringing her eyes out with angry balled fists fit for a warrior princess ready for battle. The only difference is, there’s no one here to scoop him up and hold him close while he cries. Instead, he slumps to one side, curled fetal, knees drawn right up to his chest as he heaves, belatedly winded by the punch to his gut delivered, unapologetic, by one soon to be estranged husband.

He won’t sign the papers hewontsignthepapers HE WON’T SIGN THE PAPERS!

He _can’t_ sign the papers.

He can’t give Adam the satisfaction. Adam Parrish is all about walking away on his own terms. He needs to be in control of every. Little. Detail of his life. Including Ronan.

But Ronan won’t be controlled. Not like this.

He breathes through his teeth, a wolf’s snarl, tongue snapped between canines. If people think his daughter is feral, they forgot _all_ about _him_. He’s the one who created her after all, drew her up in his image, from top to toe, an inverted mirror: Adam Parrish’s elegant outward features and Ronan Lynch, down to the very core.

But lately, they _always_ forget about him. Leave him in the dust while they barrel through their merry little lives, full to the brim with jobs they love and children who would never leave them, or otherwise drop like flies at the slightest supposition of their father’s death.

He’s on the brink. And he can’t bring himself to care. Not if it means watching her walk away from him too one day. A child of his own mind shouldn’t take so after her melancholic, broody non-biological father, yet here she is, delivered into Adam’s hands, where she can’t be touched. Not by Ronan’s rough hands and cold words.

He’s lied about a lot of things in the past few days. But about one thing he’s stayed true:

He’d rather die with his daughter than let her go and live out his days without her.

He _is_ sorry. He’s sorry a thousand times over. He’d apologize to his daughter every day until the day they die if he must. Leave her little gifts and care for her fragile young body until she realizes he means it. But it doesn’t make the fact any less true.

When he sleeps, there in the forest’s brush, he dreams erratic, in jagged pieces, too sharp to grab for foothold and too smoke-screened to pull anything out. He keeps trying to seize something- anything in his fist, but it dissipates like a shroud of mist, gone in an instant. The alcohol used to make it clearer. He’s had so much of it now, his subconscious ignores it, developing immunity against the leech that sucks at his soul until there’s nothing left.

He hurts. And there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

 

Day 2.

           

The Barns are somehow quieter, now that Ronan knows Adam’s not coming home. They spent the past sixteen years cultivating this farm together. He’s lived his whole life here, and only half of it with Adam and Violet, yet he can’t imagine a time without them here with him. To do that, he has to forge a version of himself who didn’t have to question who he was yet, who could simply roam and play with his brothers, and cuddle small animals, and listen to his father’s outrageous stories… But even that feels like a far off dream lately. Like the Ronan before Niall Lynch’s murder is a completely different person from the man he is now. In a sense, he is.

The air is crisp and chill around him as he steps out of the BMW on his second night alone. He pulls his hood up over his brow and tucks his hands into his armpits as he forges through the cold. Henrietta’s due for another snowfall, he can feel it. The last batch has hardly melted, the fine frost collecting in patches like reverse cow hide. The real cows are likely sleeping by now, tucked into their own barn, sheltered from the evening’s frost.

He leans against a ramshackle fence, nursing a cheap beer, as he watches the remaining stragglers mill about their pasture. It’s not exactly pacifying, being out here, where he was raised, under the same night sky with the same ethereal cows his father dreamt up for him, but it’s the closest thing he can reach tonight. He’s not ready to go inside. Not yet. Retiring into the emptiness of the house tastes like bitter defeat he won’t accept.

He taught his daughter how to wrangle cows, out here in these fields. Bought her her first pair of boots and a brimmed hat to match and set her loose with a rope and tie. Of course, like everything she ever does, she takes to it like a natural, easing each animal into submission with quiet words and soothing hands. She could’ve been a rodeo girl if she wanted to be. But Violet’s no hick. Adam’s instilled in her a sense of pride that has only so much patience for hill-billy shenanigans. She rides horses like a dream (perhaps because she is one), but focuses her attentions on more affluent hobbies. Violin, which falls away to soccer, which falls away to Irish dance, which falls away to ballet, which falls away to botany and kickboxing. Which… still sticks around, to this very day. Her battered punching bag swaying dormant in the cellar and Ronan’s still healing bruises smacked across his temple are a testament to that. She’s a regular Jack of all trades, his girl, his shining _star_ of a girl. She’s already doing far more with her life than Ronan can even contemplate with his.

The thing is, for sixteen years, Ronan _was_ doing something with his life. Being a father. Being a damn _good_ father. But a father isn’t what Violet needs anymore. She stands strong, both feet firmly planted on the ground, all on her own. And he sees the way she looks at Sargent Gansey. And the way Sargent Gansey looks at her. He’s no fool. She’s just as much his as he is hers and Ronan can sure as hell see that boy pulling her up onto his steed and whisking her off, into the sunset and their happily ever after. Jesus Christ, those two have more promise in their entwined pinky fingers than he and Adam ever did. Violet wouldn’t throw something like that away.

Not like her father did.

It takes three or four more beers to give him the courage to enter the empty barn he calls home. Childless, husbandless. Alone in this dark, dark house. A shrewd family of one. They say no man is an island. Except for Ronan Lynch, whose peninsula to the outside world finally sunk with the rising tide.

He stumbles into the master bedroom, barely catching himself on the door jamb before he goes down on wobbly legs. “ _Shit_ ,” he hisses, not for the close-call with the floor, but for the queen-sized bed, left utterly untouched from last Adam Parrish ruffled the sheets with his restless toss and turn. “Fucking hell fuck shitting _shit_!” He has plenty more foul words to express his distaste for the matter at hand. But his hands have always been far more effective at saying what needs to be said, and doing what needs to be done.

The duvet comes off first, sliding off slow, then rapid, in rivulets like ice cream out of a soft-serve machine. Then the pillows, flung wide across the room. The first of the four knock a picture frame off a bookshelf. Newly minted husband Adam Lynch beams lovingly up at him from their wedding photo, now cast forgotten, to the floor. Off comes the top sheet and he carries all out back, in the empty car lot, but far enough away from any buildings to prevent harm. He trudges back inside for the grand finale: the mattress itself, a struggle to push down the hall, out the door and into the black, inky night. He takes a breather to swallow back another beer and fumbles into the garage, which greets him, wall to wall to wall enchanted with brightly coloured murals Indie and Violet painted together when Adam dubbed the space Indie’s car sanctuary. Fairies and wood nymphs drawn by childish hands peek out of unexpected corners of Cabeswater at every season, full to bursting with judgment as he snatches up a heavy canister of gasoline from a dusty spider-infested nook.

Adam Parrish creeps all over every surface of this place. But Ronan can’t very well torch the whole farm. Not his family’s _legacy_. He _can_ , however, take back their marriage bed, and with it, every promise he ever made.

He builds the bonfire like that angry teenaged boy who hurled Molotov cocktails all those years ago. That frightened, lost teen, who couldn’t understand what he was. Ronan’s still no closer to answering that question as he tosses pillows, one after another onto the pyre, slumping the quilt over all before dousing the lot in gasoline.

Something ignites in him as he drops the match, something reckless he hasn’t felt since Kavinsky and it _burns_ , deep in his soul, tearing his flesh away from the bone, as if it’s he whose caught fire and not his sheets soiled with the remains of mediocre hate sex and the stifling reminder of the love he once had for a man he hardly even recognizes anymore from the boy he fell for.

A hysterical laugh creeps out of him unchecked, a laugh reminiscent of white sunglasses and a Mitsubishi to match. Adam Parrish doesn’t live here anymore. And if his soul has anything to say about it, neither does Ronan Lynch.

 

Day 3.

 

I.

 

Day three finds him at a bar, searching the bottom of his gin for answers to questions he’s already long forgotten. First and foremost: how long can he go before giving in to the siren’s call of the drink? His thrumming heart points the way, true North, knowing the precise moment when his alcoholic anesthetic has worn off and the pain lances back through him in shockwaves. He can’t numb himself forever. It all comes flooding back eventually, in broken, scattered, incomprehensible pieces, but still painful nonetheless.

Ronan plays a game with himself: how many drinks does it take to forget Adam Parrish? Tonight, he dares himself to forget without a single drink, a self-imposed hypnosis, brought upon by the ripples of the clear liquid in his crystal snifter: pretty rosewater to dull the pain.

“You look like a man who could use two of those,” a voice notes from beside him. Ronan’s been too lost in his wallowing to notice the man sidling up on the stool next to his against the bar. He’s young. Younger than Ronan, at least, from the looks of him. An out-of-towner, a livewire, looking to chase some Virginia Hicksville tail before he jets back off to whatever gleaming skyscraper city he came from, to tick one more thing off his slimy bucket list.

“I don’t do casual,” Ronan warns before he lets this guy get any ideas.

The man lets out an unnecessary clipped laugh in response, as if expecting a prize for pretending to appreciate Ronan’s wit. He straightens his royal blue tie in both fists as he says, “let me guess: you married your childhood sweetheart and now you’re filled with bitter regrets.”

 _God damn it_.

Twenty minutes he’s gone without a single thought of his erstwhile husband and now this handsome piece of shit… He tips back his glass and swallows down the gin to delay rewarding this asshole with a response.

“But you _are_ married, aren’t you?” the smug bastard carries on, nudging his dimpled chin to Ronan’s left hand clutching the tumbler.

“Not if my husband has anything to say about it,” he replies bleakly, setting down his drink to peel the gold band off his ring finger. The pair of them watch, rapt as it spins on its edge for an extended moment, a gleaming child’s toy whirring round and round and round until it slows to a lazy lull and simply teeters with a profound _clink clink clink clinkclinkclink_ against the wood of the bar.

“Ah, so you _do_ swing this way.”

Ronan snatches up his ring before this guy gets the _wrong_ idea. “I do whatever the fuck I want,” he admits as unpleasantly as possible.

“But what _you_ want isn’t what _he_ wants.”

Ronan’s fist clenches around his wedding ring. Right now, he wants nothing more than to deck this asshat and call it a night. Instead, he pacifies the flash of aggression with another hearty swig of gin. He finds when he comes back up for air from his tender kiss with liquid destruction, his glass is empty. With a disgruntled groan, he catches the bartender’s eye and signals for another.

The man next to him raises his hand to grip Ronan’s wrist. “No no. Allow me.”

 

II.

 

Ronan doesn’t do this. Ronan doesn’t _do_ this. But he’s too drunk to care and too lonely to stop it from happening. In the distant haze of four or five glasses of gin gone, this man follows his husband’s vague shape in form. His sandy hair, cut neat and close, his sharp black suit, like a lawyer’s suit, all well pressed corners and smooth edges… He’s more insistent than Adam ever was, pushing him against the wall of his hotel room, hard enough to jar the artwork poised above their heads right off its hook. Adam never lacked passion. Back during their wedding jitters, it was Adam that held the strong front between them, nudging him open with careful hands to remind him that he is loved and wanted, and needed, here and now. That nothing would convince him against marrying Ronan Lynch, no matter what. Adam showed him what it meant to truly _want_ someone, and go out there and _prove_ it.

But somewhere along the line, Adam stopped being that person who wanted him, and Ronan stopped wanting to be wanted.

And now here he is, pushed onto a hotel mattress with a complete stranger wearing his husband’s face, marred with unfamiliar details that mock the elegance that radiates from Adam Parrish. His nose is too big, his eyes too dark, his hands too rough. But he doesn’t care he doesn’t care he doesn’t care _he doesn’t fucking care_.

He tries to tell himself so over and over again each time they thrust against the mattress together and Ronan flares with heat and tries to forget that cursed name in a different way. He gives all he can to this moment, beats himself up _forget forget forget_ ringing in his head in time with the scraping of the bed frame against the wall.

Because he’s done with Adam Parrish if Adam Parrish is done with him. He’s taken everything from Ronan. His daughter… his home… his friends… his _heart.._. his _life_. He’s shattered now, every piece of him scattered on the floor, fragments too small to stitch back together.

No matter how many mantras he dreams up, and how many times he lets this stranger fuck him every which way as he does it, his name still rips from his body every time.

 _Adam_. _Please god, Adam. Why? Adam!_

And when this perfect stranger finally finishes with him, spent with the dizziness of alcohol and sloppy anonymous hook ups, Ronan lies awake, feeling for the first time in twenty years like he’s thoroughly lost sight of himself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think all of this goes against everything Ronan stands for, you would be correct. He's gotta be thoroughly stripped before he can be built back up. But it's gonna take something huge to turn it around first...


	26. Unholy Horror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a seemingly ordinary night, Ronan Lynch returns to Monmouth, destruction in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for graphic violence and abuse. I don't want to get into too many details about the nature of it, but it's _bad_. In part, this has always been a victim's story. One that follows how they rise up above their abusers and live on, beyond it. I wouldn't be writing this content if I didn't think I could tackle the issue with the care and respect it deserves...
> 
> If you are of the squeamish sort, I wholeheartedly recommend you wait it out for a future chapter so you can have some closure to this particular conflict because I don't want you to be dwelling on this, unhinged. I will try to get the next chapter out ASAP because it's not fair to leave you guys hanging with this in particular.
> 
> I wholeheartedly apologize in advance...

 I.

 

Ronan spits on his own grave, the one his friends dug for him the day he met Richard Campbell Gansey III those many years ago. They were fast friends at the time, still are in a sense. Even though Gansey’s ascended to his higher calling while Ronan’s excavated himself a hole, deeper and deeper, until all he’s got is a trench, showered with flung grenades blown wide with shrapnel: fire and brimstone. His own personal hell. Here they are to shovel the dirt back onto his casket, lowered six feet under in its lonely graveyard plot.

The only ghost to greet him is himself.

Ronan’s demons have clawed away at him for long enough. They eat away at his insides, tiny parasites looking for fresh blood. He needs someone to acknowledge what they’ve done; what part they’ve played in this. Because this isn’t just his folly. He’s watched them grow while he flounders, even now. With no helping hand to pull him up.

 _Who am I supposed to be?_ He’d ask. And all he’d get in return is an unlikely _can’t you be happy with who you are now?_

But Ronan doesn’t even know if he wants to be someone. Like Adam wants to be someone, like Gansey and Blue want to be someone. Even Noah, who was someone once and still cleaves to that sense of identity, even in his nonexistence.

Noah once fought to keep himself from ceasing to exist. And now it’s Ronan’s turn.

He doesn’t remember how he got here. That’s not important. What’s important now is the satisfying feeling of his fingers clenching around the handle to the driver’s side door of the BMW, jerking it open and slamming it shut, hard enough to let the windows rattle. He moves with a swagger, far more powerful than anyone as drunk as Ronan has any right to be. Here’s a cobra ready to strike, gaining its ground, inch by inch toward unsuspecting prey.

He stalks through Blue Lily, paying no mind to the displays he knocks askew, scattering shampoo bottles out of their intricately placed pyramids and onto the floor. His arms swing wild after him, his whole body thrumming with purpose. He takes the stairs three at a time; he has no patience for unnecessary delays. He needs answers, once and for all. And he needs them now.

 

II. 

 

Sunday nights are movie nights in Monmouth Manufacturing, when everyone’s back under the same roof. Sargent enthusiastically plugged for _Singing in the Rain_ tonight, seconded by Indie and thirded and fourthed by Blue and Noah. It’s enough to satisfy Gansey’s old fashioned sensibilities and Violet easily gives over when it comes to Sargent, although she does so with snarky comments and teasing jibes at her boyfriend’s expense.

It’s their first movie night together as a couple. All is right with the world when Sargent slings his arm around her shoulder and eases her against him on the couch, pressing a kiss to her temple. This is comfortable, this is _right_ , being here, part of this family. She _belongs_ here. Even her father knows it, as he watches her intently, deep in thought from across the room.

In the dimly lit room with the flash of the television screen and surround sound’s boom, no one notices the flash of the BMW’s headlights beaming through the window, nor the stomp of heavy footfalls on the stairs.

Their laughter and contented grins hang breathless in the air, cut short by a pounding at the door. Not a request, but a _demand_. The pounding sounds once more, a violent THUMP THUMPTHUMP that reverberates through the factory. Gene Kelly has barely even begun his jaunty tune that gives the musical its name and his voice rings out, a chillingly joyful juxtaposition against the backdrop of THUMP THUMPTHUMPTHUMP.

No one moves. No one breathes. Sargent’s hand clamps down on Violet’s shoulder as she burrows her face into his chest. Adam, sitting closest to the window peers out and he knows precisely who’s on the other side of that door.

He swallows, thick and hollow, but choking on everything his husband expects atonement for. Gansey is the first to make a move toward the door. “Don’t,” Adam warns, scrambled half out of his seat himself. “Don’t let him in.” Adam’s done nothing wrong. None of them have. And they don’t deserve whatever’s coming for them. “Gansey, _don’t let him in_!”

Gansey fixes him with a cold stare, utterly unamused at having to choose between his two best friends. “Adam, it’s _Ronan_.”

“Do you want me to deal with it?” Blue inquires diplomatically, already rolling up her sleeves.

“No,” Adam insists with a shake of his head. “No. Just… leave him.”

But leaving Ronan Lynch on their doorstep is not an option. Not when he has a key.

He bursts through with enough of a bang of wood against concrete, Gansey worries he’s ripped the door clean off its hinges this time. They hear him before they see him, a scathing shout of “WHERE IS HE?” as the human tornado blows through their living room, in search for its target.

Ronan looks impossibly less human than last any of them saw him. Dark circles rim each eye, a mask of exhaustion fit for a thief. There’s something wild and feral in those eyes, more wild than Ronan’s ever been, the kind of wild you only see in a dog, foaming with the madness of rabies, running circles in search for the closest thing to sink its teeth into before being put down. For good. When he breathes, he heaves, deep in his chest, but shallow, like he’s fighting for every ounce of it, right through his clenched teeth. He stands tall, his anger making him taller still, an impossible mountain built up in their cozy living room. A giant descended from magic beans, come to wreak havoc on them all.

“I _was_ someone before you! Did you know that?” If he’s addressing Adam now, he doesn’t look it, as he screams it out to the room at large. “I knew who I was. Who I _stood_ for. I had god damn fucking _morals_. I had a _code_! And you took it from me! Just like you took my daughter from me too.”

“Ronan,” Gansey tries, lunging into his wayward friend’s path, only to be pushed back by one impatient paw, the force of it, hand to chest, barrels him back against the couch, hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

“I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE!” he shrieks, pitching forward to grab Adam by the collar, but between Adam’s deft dodge and Ronan’s sloppy drunken aim, he misses. His second swipe lands, right on target, by pure luck. Adam’s blood pumps heavy in his ears, his bad ear ringing with the imprint of his father’s fists from ghosts of his past. He struggles under Ronan’s grip, but has nowhere to go. “You stripped him from me when you walked away!”

Adam’s bones rattle under his skin as Ronan shakes him into a ragdoll’s flop. “Ronan… you don’t have to do this.” He’s not going to fight. He won’t give Ronan the satisfaction. But he will do everything in his power to talk him down. Once upon a time, the sound of his voice was enough to sooth Ronan out of the worst of his funks.

But this is more than a funk. Goes further than skin deep. Right down to the marrow, poisoned him with the memory of all he’s lost; all he thinks he still stands to lose in losing Adam first. “Give her back,” he doesn’t yell it this time, but heaves it out, barely heard between them, somehow a more menacing snarl than Ronan at full volume.

Adam’s blood runs cold. He’s come for Violet. Jesus Christ. God almighty… He summons up all the courage he has, and throws it all into the sneer he shoves back in his husband’s face, mere inches from his own. “Over my dead body,” he spits. Were he a fighting man, this would be the perfect opportunity to head butt his attacker in the face and duck away. But he’s not Ronan. Neither of them are now.

His disinterest in playing Ronan’s game costs him as the man hauls him in and forces him back. Blue’s startled shriek rings out somewhere above him and his side collides with the coffee table, glass shattering under the brunt of his weight.

Ronan rounds on him, his shadow sweeping behind him making him look massive in the dim cinema lighting. “Fucking _wait_ ,” a voice rings out, harsh beneath labored breathing. In his haze, he doesn’t recognize his daughter’s biting inflection until her fist’s already collided with his face.

She stands square and adversarial before him, fists still raised. If she’s unsettled by the situation, the numb-to-the-world calm upon her face covers up its tracks exceptionally well. She tosses a sweep of curls over her shoulder and cricks her neck, one way, then the other in that way that she does as if to say _I’ve got all night_.

A thin bead of blood trickles from one nostril. He wipes the warm fluid away with the back of his hand and a derisive sniff. His glare is all for her, still for an extended moment, a long enough deterrent for Gansey to slip past and grip a phone in hand. He’s already in the kitchen by now, making the call. It won’t be long now. All they need is a little time.

Ronan shakes his head, a cold laugh ripping through him. “I knew teaching you to box was a _bad_ idea.”

“Yeah?” Violet’s voice wavers, a quivering give-away for her fear, buried deep beneath all these layers of emotional baggage. At her back, Sargent helps Adam to his feet. But his tact is far less subtle than Violet’s. And a volatile Ronan Lynch doesn’t like it. Not one bit. It’s enough to wrench his attentions from daughter back to husband.

Sarge backs off, stumbling back to curl up into the furthest corner of the couch, knees drawn up and useless in this hopeless situation.

One hand grips Violet’s shoulder, tight enough to crunch, with the intention of maneuvering around her to get to Adam.

Like hell she’ll let that happen.

The physical contact is enough of an excuse for her to get a good grip on him and fling him back in a dynamic pinwheel of flailing legs before he hits the floor. This time, there’s no mat to catch him when his spine makes contact.

Violet straightens, her priority with her father, and making sure he’s okay. “Daddy…” she starts, reaching for Adam as Adam reaches for her. Their hands barely clasp before Violet goes down with a heart wrenching cry of surprise.

Ronan’s got her by the leg and drags her down with him. Sargent screams bloody murder above them, held back by one fiercely protective mother, who refuses to let her son get mixed in the fray. Not when he’d fair far worse than Violet Lynch. At least Violet knows how to fight. Sarge can barely stand on two feet. This is not his battle.

It’s Ronan’s.

He drags her a foot or two, her elbows and knees colliding rough against the hardwood floors. Her screams are horror movie victim screams, caught by the ankle by a malevolent killer out for blood he doesn’t deserve.

His own daughter.

“No,” comes the first of her pleas, tears running horizontal, slipping past her ears and into her golden wreath of hair. “ _No._ Daddy… _please…_ don’t!”

Ronan’s rolled himself over, looming above her with a sinister leer, nightmare fodder to keep her awake at night for weeks to come, superimposed on her brain. His breath comes in tepid huffs- a wolf’s pant, putrid with an impossible cocktail of every last drink he’s had over the past four days. No amount of bleach or acid or any such chemicals or poisons could strip this from her now. When his fist raises to hit her, she’s ready for it, and rolls to her right, vision bleary through her tears. Her nose smashes into the wood of the floor as the blow catches the back of her head instead.

Adam and Sargent shout in tandem above them as Ronan’s rough hands find her shoulders and roll her over to face him once more. She can’t look at him. Not at that villainous face. He’s ruined himself, for her, and for everyone else in attendance. They know what he is, and what he’s become.

They all thought better of him. Worse… they _trusted_ him. _Adam_ trusted him. And in turn, _Violet_ trusted him. His _daughter_ …

He hits her like an affliction, a smashing of knuckles against soft, untouched skin, again and again until that pretty face resembles nothing of Adam Parrish anymore save for a childhood he never wanted for her. Screaming falls away to helpless whimpers, but Violet Lynch is not a girl who backs down, not even when the one person she loved above all else grinds her face to mush. There are still pieces of her left untarnished. Those unscathed working parts of wonder weaponise when the rest of her body fails her.

The pair of them tussle, far too evenly matched to cause further damage for now. Ronan’s right: he made a mistake in picking a fight with the one girl who knows his best moves as intimately as the back of her own elegant hands. He has her pinned to the floor and she struggles to free her hands long enough to tear at him. Instead, her legs wheel uselessly beneath his dead weight, searching for the perfect pressure point to dig right in.

Her knee goes for his crotch and misses by a hair as her vision splits with the distracting aura of a coming migraine. Something’s rattled loose within and it frightens her. The fuzz of her brain wraps around the worst. Blood clots… shattered skull… internal bleeding… She always knew her father was going to kill her. But not like this. Never like this.

 One large, hand claws at her face, blind and clumsy, palm slick with sweat. Ronan’s calloused farmer’s fingers hook around her bottom lip like a fish on a line. She squeezes her eyes shut tight and bares down on the knuckle, canines sinking in with a bloody crunch.

She won’t allow herself misjudgments a second time. The second jab of her knee right up between his legs hits home. Ronan’s fingers squeeze at her for one convulsive second before he eases, the shock seizing at him alongside the pain lancing straight through him. He keels, Achilles’ heel locked and acquired.

Violet rolls toward the couch, an unwise decision in the current state of things. Her head pounds, the furthest reaches of her brain pulsating and sloshing impossibly against her skull.

Blue releases her son in favour of gathering Ronan up by the scruff of his neck while he’s still vulnerable and drags him out with a biting sense of purpose the likes of which none of them have ever seen. They can hear the tussle all the way down the stairs, Ronan’s heavy, stupored form crashing against walls as Blue manhandles him out out out onto the street and out of her home, as far away from her kids as she can get him. The police should be along soon.

Without his maternal restraints, Sargent’s on Violet in an instant, sweeping her away from the halo of broken glass already glistening like jagged teardrops through her hair. She clings to him with a strangled wail, mouth wide open against his too-large sweatshirt. The bulky fabric pulls away easily with her clawing hands and she realizes all too quickly that for once, this isn’t the person who should be comforting her. She lifts her chin a fraction, the only part of her head that can bear movement, just far enough from Sargent’s compact chest that she can find her father a few paces away.

Adam doesn’t hesitate, grasping her hand and reeling her in as Sargent permits, an easy transfer from lover to parent. He’s choking back a hymnal of _oh my god oh my god oh my god_ over and over again, a skipped record, stuck on repeat, coupled with her name, as he takes in the worst of the damage, strokes her hair and keeps her close, _don’t you ever,_ ever _let go, do you hear me_?

A siren blares in the distance, screeching louder and multiplying in resonance as two police cars and an ambulance swing into Monmouth’s driveway. Blue Sargent stands, with Ronan Lynch pinned to a cement wall, his arms pulled taut around his back, as if she’s the law herself, holding him hostage until the cops can take over from here.

On this night of unholy horrors, they have finally been reprieved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've made it this far, you've made it through the worst. I'm proud of you. While the rest of the plot may not be smooth sailing from here on out, I'm expecting this chapter to have been the worst this story could possibly get. The rest will be in reaction to this particular conflict.


	27. Hospital Beds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hospital visits, restraining orders, posted bails, lost memories, and friendships rekindled.

I.

 

Sargent Gansey is not a boy easily gotten rid of. He cares too fiercely not to clamber into the back of the ambulance with Violet, a far more willing passenger than the victim herself. Adam joins them, watching his daughter like a hawk as they speed off toward the hospital, a parting of ways from the gathering of cops who duck one explosively unstable Ronan Lynch down into the back of their screaming car.

Violet didn’t go down willingly. She’s sluggish and confused the minute the world slows down long enough to let her get off this theme park ride of horrors. She’s been going full-tilt for so long now, she’s dizzy with it, teetering over the edge of an invisible quarry. She stumbles, pitched dangerously forward while she’s on her feet. It doesn’t take long for the cold, clammy lightheadedness to overcome her swimming head and back down she goes. Sargent’s there to catch her, easing her to her knees on the asphalt, where her stomach empties itself with a sharp acid burn in her throat.

Sarge’s gag reflex kicks in without his consent as the warm, acrid smell of vomit hits him, but he swallows back his own queasiness and focuses on soothing the shock from Violet’s prone form instead, one hand splayed gentle against the knobs of her spine. Her shoulders shake, a lead-in to a full-body shiver.

In the distance, he can just about hear his parents exchanging grim words with police officers, fading into his peripheral. The memory of the past hellish hour pounds in his ears like the bashing tide against the shore in a storm. She’d told him again and again, how bad it had gotten within her little family of three. And he hadn’t believed her. None of them had believed her. _Or_ Adam. How could any of them have known this was the peril standing at their gate every night? Sargent can hardly wrap his head around how truly sheltered he and the rest of the Ganseys are by their blissful ignorance. Their family has always been one of unerring optimism. Because none of them had quite seen horror such as this. None of them could have dreamt this up.

But Ronan did. And Violet’s paid the price.

Before him, Violet looks just about ready to topple onto her side and spend her night on a concrete bed of pavement, crippled beneath the night’s exertion. She fought and she fought _hard_. It’s more than anything Sargent could have ever done. Hell, he was here not a week before, with Violet fighting his battles because he’s simply too weak to take that shot for himself. She plays a game of Russian Roulette, startlingly careless with the gun in her hand: round two, and frighteningly close to dashing her own clever brains against a wall. Next round may very well kill her. Sargent’s not prepared to take that bet. Not for her. Not against her _life_.

Violet Lynch is a defender, a masked vigilante, swooping in with the swish of curls and flying fists. She knows how to make a villain back down. Yet tonight, her match is met in the chilling form of her father. Her usual battles take a swift punch to the jaw and a snarky quip with a dash of threat she would most certainly stand by should anyone dare take a second swing.

She never expected anyone to try.

But Ronan Lynch, the man who brought her into this world, head tipped with alcohol, knows this brain child of his. He’s had this dream before; dreamt of her and her flying fists and knows how to deflect her. She’s his mirror image- they’re just as feisty as each other. Tonight, their hot-headed stubbornness drags them down.

The Lynches are more trouble than they’re worth.

Sargent hates to think it, but it’s about time everyone stopped catering to their every whim. Was this not Niall Lynch’s legacy? Raising the literal family of his dreams with a boxer’s hand, til the day of his death, at the mercy of a brutal tire iron? He’s heard the stories. He’s not stupid. He knows the sordid past from whence his girlfriend came. It’s a rough sort of Irish mobster’s past he would never ask for himself.

Ronan, on the other hand, seems more than keen to let history repeat itself in spades, gleefully lighting the match and igniting the flames to his own self-destruction. How long before Violet stumbles upon him, face bashed right through, with the same weapon that killed his father before him? How long before Violet takes up that torch of vengeance and obliterates herself in the process?

He thinks about it as the paramedics come for her and even in her state of lethargy, tries to push them away. He thinks about it as the confusion sets in, the flashing lights blaring against Violet’s retinas blotting out her vision like finger paints of her rose tinted childhood. She’s still living that moment, he knows, when fingers curl gently over her forearm and she claws at it, ready to flip them over her shoulder, if her strength would only permit it. But it’s just a medic, offering up a shock blanket in her first step toward nudging this sucker punch of a girl into the back of her vehicle.

She’s no less confused when he carefully eases her to him, but somewhere, beneath the haze of her ordeal, she recognizes Sargent, and hopes she isn’t wrong like she was wrong about her father. Between Adam, Sarge, and the medic, they get her seated into back of the ambulance, where she’s gently bombarded with questions she can barely handle in her current state. Sargent wants to tell the paramedics to back off and leave her be until they’ve reached the hospital and she’s had some time to wind down, but they insist. She runs the risk of concussion, a risk that becomes more and more cemented the more pieces they begin to slot together from her fragmented responses.

They keep asking after her sight, so much so, Sargent begins to worry she’s lost it completely. But Adam holds out a hand and squeezes his arm, even more for himself than to comfort his godson. The pair of them brace themselves for the worst, especially as she begins to fade out.

The medics won’t let her.

“Hey. Don’t go to sleep, Violet. Okay?” They keep the questions coming. Ask her her name, her age, what day it is. Anything to keep her talking, alert, and awake. They can’t risk letting her crash. Because when she does, she may not reboot again.

 

 II.

 

In her lucid moments, she talks of stars and pancakes with chocolate chips sprinkled in the shape of confessions of love. She talks of fresh fruit and kisses and a boy with a voice like velvet and a dazzling smile for days. She barely knows her own name, but she knows Sargent like a necessary fourth limb.

Because the last thing she remembers is breakfast in bed. Her reset button takes her back to the last moment she felt truly safe and loved.

The doctor keeps asking her if she remembers her name. And all her lips can handle parting with is Sargent’s name, oddly shapen and unfamiliar on her tongue, like it’s the name of her childhood pet or invisible friend: something that’s not quite real. But Sargent Gansey _is_ real, and stands so close, yet so far away, as if a pane of glass separates them. No matter how much he bangs his hands against it, there’s no meeting her on the other side. She’s seen, but impossible to reach. More than anything, he wants to hold her hand and kiss her brow, press her close and let the universe catch them when they fall away from the Earth’s orbit together. But she’s Venus and he’s Pluto, barely a blip in her solar system, yet still a hint in her memories, light years away.

They keep her for observation the next few nights. The separation is unbearable, keeping Sargent awake until early morning sunlight peaks through the bedroom curtains. Mornings are for kissing girls awake, serenading them into giggles barely restrained under the press of pillows, catching proclamations of love heavily disguised as insults and backhanded compliments… His mornings are for Violet, and he never truly knows it until he wakes up without her there, sleepy smiles falling away to that carefully constructed sneer on her pretty mouth.

Sargent’s never been alone before in his entire life. But here he is, more alone than he can ever imagine, lanced from the one person who puts the sun in his sky. 

 

III.

 

The judge posts Ronan Lynch’s bail the day after the incident. No one at Monmouth is in a hurry to pay that price for him, not if it means seeing him walk free after what he’s done to his daughter; what he’s done to their _family._

Adam knows it’s a matter of time before Ronan pays the bail himself and he’ll be coming back for them, guns blazing. He can’t risk that confrontation any more than he couldn’t risk the last one. He told Gansey nothing good would come of it. Now they’re each paying for it with their shattered family and shattered trust. He can’t afford to let it happen again.

The emergency protective order will keep Ronan’s wrath at bay for three days at least. That gives Adam enough time to put his latest affairs in order. He moves the Massachusetts trip he promised Violet up a few days, and extends it as much as he can. The weekend trip had started off as a plan to give them some much needed respite from this hell they’ve been living these past few weeks. Perspective was the keyword to his plan, one he hoped he might gain from seeing different sights, seeing in his mind’s eye what he and his daughter might look like under a new backdrop and a new context. But now, it’s all out warfare. This is an _escape_ , into icy waters from a sinking ship _._

_You jump, I jump, Jack._

Gansey can tell he’s got one foot out the door. It’s a perpetual state of being he hasn’t seen Adam in in a while. But here he is, tentatively considering that cliff’s edge. Not just tentatively anymore. He sees that now. And for good reason…

They sit quiet and stark that first night, in the hospital waiting room, anxious for news about Violet’s health. Things aren’t looking good. She’s been properly rattled, brain fuzzy and cut out with the white noise of every blow, each one an imprint on her mind, taking one more thing from her she may never get back.

Adam sits, leaned forward on his knees, legs spread wide, body too drained to bother with the stern regulation of his habitual lawyer’s stance. Gansey takes up a stiffer pose across from him, head propped up by the three points of his elbow, thumb and forefinger, lost in thought.

Gansey looks to his friend, solemn, and contrite. “I’m so sorry Adam,” he murmurs, a genuine apology. Adam can’t tell if he means he’s sorry about Ronan or sorry about everything held between them lately. But Gansey doesn’t leave him wondering long and clarifies. “I should never have threatened to leave like that.” He shakes his head, releasing a deep sigh, heavy with horrors he never thought he’d witness.

“Gansey,” Adam starts, knowing full well where this is going. “You don’t have to-“

Gansey fixes him with a firm stare he reserves for unruly kids and idle students. “But I do.” Another sigh. “I should’ve believed you. When you told me things with Ronan had gotten bad. I just didn’t think…” He shakes his head, letting whatever he _did_ think go with his atonement. “I just need you to know. We’re not going anywhere. Not with this hanging over you head.”

Adam blinks back. A part of him knew Gansey would never leave. Henrietta is his life’s blood. He’s in _love_ with this place. But more importantly, he’s in love with his friends. And he’d never leave any of them in their time of need. “Thanks, man.”

It’s the first time they’ve talked since their fight the week before. Work and the unforgotten bitterness of their exchanged words keep them at bay. But they got there in the end.

Adam doesn’t know who stands first, but before he knows it, he’s being pulled into Gansey’s grip, hands clapped to his back in affable camaraderie he didn’t realize he’d been missing.

They part from their conciliatory hug, amicable friendship back on the mend. “So,” Gansey shuffles with all the awkwardness of a boy with a crush. “My son and your daughter. Dating, hey?”

Adam was hardly the last person to notice, but he’s glad Gansey’s finally putting it to words beyond uncomfortable half-baked assumptions and garbled, indignant exclamations. “Sure looks that way,” he concedes with a concise nod, his Henrietta accent slipping through, needlepoint smooth. In truth, he’s anxious about his daughter’s burgeoning romantic life. Not that he doesn’t trust Sargent Gansey with her life. He does. He trusts him more than any other boy Violet could have possibly chosen. But of course, his daughter and Gansey’s son were written in the stars, the pair of them born for each other. He remembers days when they were still small, and Ronan would watch the pair of them over their tea parties shared with stuffed bears, and joke a little too wistfully that she would marry that boy one day.

Now here they are, together at last, like destiny dictates. Ronan hasn’t even seen Violet and Sargent as _Violet and Sargent_ , and he’s already not taking it well.

She’s growing up too fast, their little girl. Adam sees it too. He sees it in the uncompromising way she stands, back straight and arms crossed like a _woman_ , or the way she presses Sargent up against walls, where she thinks no one’s looking, and presses a little too close, lets her hands wander a little too far, and kisses him with everything she’s got, like she’s releasing herself of her soul and giving him permission to swallow it up for his own. She’s as good as given herself, body and soul to him, hasty and eager as anything. Adam worries she’ll give so much of herself, there won’t be much left of her when they inevitably pursue separate things independent of one another. And he knows it’ll happen. Vi’s a fighter; Sargent’s a performer. What options have they together?

Adam shouldn’t be so cynical. He knows this. He’s letting his ordeal with Ronan get the better of him. He and Ronan may be polar opposites, but his daughter isn’t doomed to the same fate. He has no doubt Sargent’s love for her is the forever kind. Adam doesn’t need an in depth interrogation to know that. He’d follow her to the ends of the Earth, with no remorse. Remorse is nonexistent, when your whole world is contained in a single being.

Adam just made the mistake of thinking he had that with Ronan.


	28. Lost Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violet's lost a few days in the fallout. Sargent's eager to remind her of everything they still have.

 I.

Adam and Gansey's prodigal children reunite properly when Violet’s released from the hospital, her seventy-two hours of observation lifted. She’s still shaken, and Sargent never left her, not really. Only in body. He would’ve stayed there with her, had he the option and the knowledge that she’d recognize him when he got there.

But she’s home, home at Monmouth, where she blinks back the fog of the past few days. The past two weeks are still utterly lost to her, neurons and synapses jarred enough to dislodge the memories. Standing in the living room, in the precise spot where Ronan dragged her down, kicking and screaming, elicits a visible chill. She knows something happened here. But is no closer to comprehending what broke her.

She stands there, rooted to the spot, with Sargent at her elbow, wanting to stay close, but not wanting to crowd her with this overwhelming barrage of information. None of them know what she’ll retain, or if anything will come back.

He can still hear her screaming, as she stands there, that phantom attack replaying on his mind again and again and again like a sickening feedback loop. This is the most still he’s ever seen her, standing in that spot.

 _God, Violet._ Say _something._

“Where’s Dad?” she inquires, glassy eyed, in the middle of the living room, coffee table now vacated, leaving nothing but a wide, open space: a taunting reminder of that night.

“He’s coming,” Sargent confirms with practiced calm. He reaches up to ruffle his hair from the back, watching her intently. “He’s just bringing your stuff out of the car.”

She frowns, momentarily flustered. Sargent can’t tell whether she’s at a loss for words because she doesn’t know what to say or she no longer knows how to say it. “No. Ronan.” Her gaze shifts to meet his, deliberately hard and searching, questioning him, pinning him down for answers. “Where’s… where’s Ronan?”

The temporary restraining order runs out today, meaning Ronan hasn’t been to visit her in the hospital. As if he has any right…

Sargent doesn’t know how to answer this. He can’t. Not without telling her the truth, and reliving everything, pain enough for the two of them. When he says nothing, she presses on. “Where _is_ he? Where’s my dad?”

It breaks his heart, knowing this is a girl who still trusts the man who broke her; a girl who’s never met the monster he’s become. Her reset button’s been pressed and just like that, Ronan Lynch gets an unwarranted second chance.

How do you tell someone the person they loved the most hurt them beyond all conscionable forgiveness? Sargent’s not sure he can take responsibility for breaking her heart once more. Whether he tells her or not, he’s hurting her either way. He reaches out to run the knuckle of his forefinger soft soft soft along her cheek, skirting the very edges of the flowering purple from the worst of her bruises. “Honey, he hit you.” His fingers trace along the lines that make up the map of her wounds, careful not to pressure her. “That’s why you were in the hospital. And why you can’t…” he has to move his hand away as thoughts of what was done to her cloud his better judgment. Rarely does Sargent get angry, but what Ronan’s done… it makes his blood boil. His fists clench at the thought, shame lancing through him that he’d share such a dark emotion with the man who hurt the girl he loves.

Violet scrunches her whole face, an action of instant regret as her injuries shake themselves out of the woodwork with blistering pain. She touches tentative fingers to her clicked jaw in surprise. It’s been three days and she’s still baffled by her physical hurts. “No he didn’t,” she insists, stubborn as ever, just like the Violet Lynch who came before her. “He wouldn’t _do_ that.”

He can’t fault her for what she doesn’t know. But it’s frustrating, no longer being on the same wave length. He knows things she doesn’t and he doesn’t know how to handle it. What can he possibly say to make this better? What can he possibly do?

He’s two weeks into her future, staring straight into a crystal ball drawn up and out of the clutter of 300 Fox Way. They’ve fallen in love, her parents have separated, her father is a violently unstable alcoholic, and she’s lost her mind in the process. Doom and gloom all around. Of course she’d find all of this hard to take in.

“Violet,” he starts, treading carefully. She turns her head to look at him, lashes fluttering. “How do you _think_ you wound up in the hospital?”

Her eyes narrow in that way that they do when she suspects someone’s been patronizing her. “I don’t know. A fight.” She uses her snark as a shield, to deflect all the ills of the world falling upon her. The fierce little frown on her face is reduced to more of a wincing grimace while the swelling’s only barely gone down on her lower lip and right eye.

“But not a fight with your father,” Sargent pushes. He knows he’s playing with fire, but he doesn’t know what else he can do besides push her buttons like he used to before he realized needling her was his way of coping with the unresolved tension between them. “Who do you think would do that to you?”

“The world.” She makes another aborted attempt to roll her eyes. “God, Sarge. _I don’t know_. I fight a _lot_ of people.”

“Vi,” Sargent breathes, wanting nothing more than to brush his forehead against hers, close and safe and reassuring, but he knows she’s still in pain and confused about her missing days. He has to take a step back, to leave her room to breathe. “Adam’s working his hardest to extend a restraining order against Ronan while he waits for him to come to his senses and sign divorce papers.”

Sargent knows. He’s walked in on far too many heated conversations between his own father and Adam in the past few days as he mopes around the house, looking for something to preoccupy himself that isn’t Violet. They’ve been furiously plotting out the best course of action against Ronan should he come knocking again.  Worse still, they’re gonna need Violet in order to succeed. “They need you to testify.”

Violet blinks, her brain still refusing to wrap around the words _restraining order_ and _divorce papers_. “No.” She shakes her head. She can’t. Because none of this is real. None of this is happening. Sargent’s lying. Ronan wouldn’t… She knows her father. He’s been nothing but good to her all her life. He _loves_ her. “ _No_. I don’t have anything to tell them! I don’t know what happened. I…” Her breathing ticks up in that way that it does, pummeling straight into hyperventilation that signals a panic attack.

Sargent seizes her by the elbow and guides her toward the couch. “Sarge, there’s nothing I can say.”

He brushes a sweeping curl away from her battered face. “I know.” He wonders if it’s a blessing in disguise that the worst of it’s been wiped from her memory, leaving her a clean slate to forgive her parents for everything they’ve put her through in the past two weeks. The time he and Vi spent together, their first days as a couple, is irreplaceable, and his heart jabs indelicately with everything they’ve lost. But they’re still here. They’re still Vi and Sarge and two weeks isn’t enough to doom a relationship. This is just a setback. Two more weeks and they’ll be back on track, like nothing ever changed.

Which is more than can be said for her parents, whose battle wages on because life doesn’t stop, not even when your husband reigns terror on your household and your daughter suffers retrograde amnesia for it. The only evidence they have against Ronan Lynch is the bruises littering his daughter’s face.

Violet’s word against him is gold, and they don’t even have that.

 

 II. 

 

Days later, Sargent spoons up against her in their wide wide bed, like that night of revelations, another night to sooth away trauma, and usher in love. This time, he kisses her neck, because he can, and because she lets him with a quiet invitation. His nose nuzzles down against the column of her throat, until his mouth finds the juncture between neck and collar bone and wades in the dipping pool of soft skin. She’s shaking beneath his touch and he reaches around her to take those quivering hands in his. He whispers proclamations of love against every piece of her he can reach, punctuated with a kiss to prove himself, one for every day of his affections that have since slipped away from her. He needs her to know he’ll never let anything happen to her. Not anymore.

She rolls over with some difficulty in his arms, so she might face him. Their fingers part, for ease of their adjustment and Sargent’s hands take the opportunity to slide, tentative, up her spine. Her body’s warm against his palms and the ridges of each vertebrae reach for him, the cornerstone of her every nerve-ending that alights everything she’s ever felt for him. His fingertips trace along the lace of her bra, contemplating the clasps. Just contemplation. No advancement into unknown territory. A mere passing thought, a wonder at where they might go, should they both want it.

 When she kisses him, it’s with excruciating desperation, searing with the usual passion Sargent’s used to by now, but doused in something else Sarge can’t quite name, as if she’s trying to coax her memories from his lips to hers: some odd Vulcan mind meld. She has too many questions she’s afraid to ask, lest she crush his heart in her trepid hands.

“How long?” she asks against his lips as she finally pulls away. He breathes a heavy heave, sucking up the air she offers and waits for clarification. Her fingers trace the hem of his shirt, also questioning. “How long have you loved me?”

Sargent blinks back at her, surprised that she would even have to ask. “ _Forever_.” He watches the overwhelming emotion flit across her broken face before she settles on ironic disgust.

“Forever and a day,” she whispers back, leaning brow to forehead, the press of bruises be damned. A sense of déjà vu washes over them and Violet knows deep down they’ve been here before, with her elegant hands pondering what it might be like to relieve Sargent of his clothes. He lets her quietly forget what it felt like to hear him say no, and deny her the opportunity, when her shirt slides in graceful little rolls beneath his patient fingertips. He steals another kiss from her mouth before parting her from the soft cotton completely, arms raised willingly overhead. Her bra is pale pink and surprisingly feminine for one scrappy Violet Lynch, coiled with roses across each cup. This is a secret side of Violet she’s offering him up now in this vulnerable moment between them: a gift to him to make up for what they’ve lost.

Touching her there feels suddenly more intimate than simple romantic kisses from the many times before. Like they’re hurtling from romance into sex before he can even contemplate it, even though this is hardly running headfirst into a moment of passion. He doesn’t know where they’re going or how much Violet can handle right now. Or even what _he_ can handle right now.

But he bites his lip, sitting up just enough to peel off his own shirt, Violet’s eyes wracking over him, appreciative and wondrous all the while. “Did we do this before?” she inquires, reaching out, tentative to trace the long stretch of skin from pectoral to torso. There’s nothing impressive there, and nothing she hasn’t seen before, but this is resoundingly different, on this evening of relearning each other’s names, tattooed with butterfly kisses across tender flesh.

Cheeks flushing pink, Sargent shakes his head. “We’ve never.”

Violet’s hands on his bare chest make him shiver, both with cold and potential for things he’s not so sure he’ll ever be ready for. Sargent’s suddenly very aware of the box of condoms nestled in their side table drawer. “Do you want to?”

He can’t even comprehend how he’ll manage this, when he can hardly look at the diagrams his mother blithely handed over with trusting hands. “Vi, I want _you_.”

It doesn’t answer her question, but her fingers curl around the nape of his neck, where his hair curls unruly at the ends, due for a trim. She reels him in for another kiss, still wondering. This is new. Their relationship is very new. And Sargent’s had more time to process this than she has. She doesn’t know what kind of girl she was with Sargent before, but this Violet  _feels_ different from whomever she used to be. She’s tentative and careful with him, as if deep down, she remembers how squeamish he is about this sort of thing. “Is it too soon?”

Sargent swallows, realizing while Violet was busy losing herself, alone in a hospital bed, he was getting to know a thing or two about _himself_. “Vi, I spent three days sleeping in this empty bed, waiting for you to come home to me so we could continue sharing the rest of our lives together, as we have been doing, for the past sixteen _years_. I don’t think _anything_ is too soon.” He also doesn’t think he’s ever going to be ready for a thing like this, but he’s prepared to try. For _her_.

The Violet from before the incident would have ploughed, full speed ahead, into the sexual experiences her boyfriend has thus far denied her. But to post-incident Vi, they’ve had mere days together, and she’s uncertain of their dynamic. She doesn’t know the boy whose had time to wrap his head around what it means to be uninterested in sex, nor does she even know this is a contentious issue between them. But she knows to be hesitant, and patient with him. Because it _does_ feel too soon, despite the fact that they’ve already shared a forever together, and Sargent’s clearly made peace with whatever demons he’s been grappling with, deep in his chest.

Sargent doesn’t often pick up cues very well, but he can read this one loud and clear. “Violet.” He takes up her hands in his and kisses her fingertips, savouring every whorl of prints, proof of the unique set of DNA that makes up this miracle of a girl. “You are so beautiful.” She hates hearing him say it, he knows. But it pays to remind her that she is more than she believes herself to be. She is more than these hands: her father’s hands. She holds his life, perilous in her grasp. Because he’s swiftly found, he’s nothing without her. To find a time in his life in which Violet Lynch hadn’t taken up every corner, every crevice of his existence, would be to go back to his infancy, before she was even a twinkle in her father’s eye. He would have to obliterate her from his map, leaving nothing but a charred hole where an entire planet used to be. She _is_ his gravitational pull.

He reminds her of that morning they spent together, with shared breakfast and even sweeter kisses. He reminds her of what it means to laugh, head tipped back and carefree. And god, she _is_ beautiful, dusty curls glinted gold and her skin pearlescent, peppered with a fair frosting of freckles beneath the moonlight’s glow.

 His ear presses against her chest, where he’s content to simply lie there and listen to their hearts syncing back into pace with one another while she runs her fingers through his hair. “Is this what it’s like?” Violet wonders at last, her voice a loud rumble beneath his ear. He shifts against her bare skin, pressing a kiss to the spot a few inches below her sweeping collarbone. They’re quiet and replete as if caught in the afterglow of climax after all. “Is this love?”

Sargent lets out a laugh, digging his chin against her chest. “This is love.” He beams back at her, realizing she’s only known a few days of being fully loved and _in_ love with someone else. Vi’s the sort who’s brought up to believe that no one can have moments this perfect all the time. It’s got to unravel sometime. Yet these are their mornings and nights, together in the tranquil silence of the spaces in between.

“How are you so fucking perfect?” she asks him. And it’s both reminiscent of Vi at her best and not Vi at all. Compliments are far beneath her- she must have hit her head pretty hard…

“Hmm… well. I’m not,” he insists, with another accompanying laugh. “I have it on good authority that I’m actually a weirdo, loser and, if I’m not mistaken, a fucking nerd.”

Violet sighs, fingers doodling aimless against his back. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” They fall into companionable silence, Vi’s fingers tiptoeing constellations across his spine, leaving a gentle prickle in their wake that tingles straight down to the tips of his fingers and toes. She makes him lightheaded and he never wants to leave from this spot, clinging to her, right here.

“Hey, Sarge?”

He hums his attentions, drowsy and relaxed under her touch. “Do you ever think about running away?”

Sargent blinks himself more awake. “What?” He’s so content with Monmouth and Henrietta, he could hardly think of a reason to turn tail and run. Unlike Violet, who has more than a few excuses to up and leave a bad situation continually getting worse.

“Running away,” she repeats, more certain now. She’s thought about it a lot, he knows. She’s expressed this notion several times before. “Just the two of us.”

“Sometimes,” he admits, thinking. “I mean, I think about leaving…”

“Where would you go?”

Sargent’s smile spreads into a full fledged grin. “New York. I follow where the theatre leads, of course.” He rolls gingerly away from her, favouring instead to fling his arm across her body, his hand accidentally finding a near unavoidable breast, tucked away into its rose coloured pocket. He knows Vi doesn’t mind, but she smacks his hand away out of principle. “And you know I’d take you with me. I wouldn’t go anywhere without you.”

“Yeah?” Violet’s far more insecure about their future, given that she has tighter bonds to Henrietta than anyone in this family. She’s tied to Ronan, dependent upon him to see her through adulthood, and Cabeswater and the leylines keep her whole and unscathed. And with no ambitions like Sargent’s big Broadway dreams, she has no aspirations to leave for any particular reason, other than to walk away from destruction constantly falling at her feet. In fact, Sargent Gansey is her sole aspiration in life and following him to the ends of the Earth to help him achieve his dreams seems as big and noble an ambition as she can get.

“God, of _course_!” he insists. He wouldn’t leave here without her. Not for a single second. “Legs and Stretch against the world!” He raises a hand in front of her face, waiting for a high five. She lets out a snort, grasping his wrist and moving it a few inches out of her personal space and delivers a satisfying smack to his hand. Of course, he suspects his notion of _Legs and Stretch against the world_ is a fair bit more domestic than whatever she envisions. He can imagine Vi in a white dress or with a child in her lap all he likes, but it doesn’t make her any less wild.

“Promise me the minute we’re both eighteen, we’ll travel the world together. Just get the fuck out of here and see _everything_.” She says it with such yearning, such _longing_ , that Sargent knows for certain this is her own wild interpretation of _Legs and Stretch against the world_. As far as plans go, this is hardly the worst she could suggest.

He sits up, pressing himself close and leaving a kiss her to temple. “Of course, my darling girl.” Doesn’t she know he’d give her the _world_ if she asked? All she has to do is say the word and it’s done. “What else can I do for you, m’lady?”

She gives him a hearty punch in the arm for being a fucking romantic dork, but humours him nonetheless. She rolls back into his arms and drapes him over her. “Sing for me?” is her only request. Of all the things that came back to her first upon waking at the hospital, Sargent’s voice played over and over in her head, crystal clear in its perfection. In her addled state, she’d thought perhaps heaven had found her, greeting her with an angel’s chorus. But he _is_ her celestial being, dropped down from Elysium’s gates. His rendition of “Stars” is etched on her heart, and the memory still brings her to tears at the least opportune times of her day. If she woke weeping that first day in the hospital because Sarge’s voice was in her head, she’ll take that fact to her grave.

Not once has Violet ever voluntarily asked him to sing something. He’s always burst out at first opportunity regardless of what she wants to hear. She never makes a secret of how in love with him and his pitch perfect vocal chords she is, but she always presents it in that snarky, backhanded way to cover her tracks. He suspects he could get used to this new mild-mannered Vi who can ask for what she wants without kicking him in the shins. “Like what?” he sifts through his extensive library of songs, dozens of mental notes kept at the forefront of his mind, in case this very miraculous moment ever came upon him.

“Something quiet,” she sighs, settling in, comfortable against his chest.

“You clearly don’t know me that well,” he teases. Violet knows full well Sargent lives at full volume or not at all.

“Oh my god. Shut the fuck up.” _There’s_ his girl. He grins, dropping a kiss to her curls before he settles on an appropriate song.

“ _Nothing’s gonna harm you_ ,” he begins, keeping his voice soft, just as she asked. “ _Not while I’m around_ …” He swoops Sondheim’s lyrics over her like a blanket, cozy and warm, a promise to never let anything happen to her again. While he’s here, with her, he dedicates himself to keeping her safe. Not a soul will hurt a hair on Violet Lynch’s head. Never gain. She can defend herself, there’s no doubt about it, but she shouldn’t _need_ to. Not after everything she’s been through. She deserves the world, a universe of stars plucked from the sky to make up her own tilting galaxy.

Sargent’s sweeping tenor does complicated things to Violet’s heart, her whole body igniting with fiery pinpricks, more than she can even contain. His promises are profound, always announced through song and the meaning is not lost on her. She may not remember what happened to her, but Sargent’s not likely to forget any time soon.

“ _Demons'll charm you with a smile, for a while,_ _but in time_...” he begins to come down off the final verse, swallowing back the emotional impact of everything he’s willing to give her in this terrible hand life has dealt her. He squeezes her a little tighter as a tear streaks unseen down her cheek. But Sargent’s not far behind, his voice wavering over the last lines.

 _Nothing can harm you_ _. Not while I'm around_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrical reference is "Not While I'm Around" from the ever-amazing Sweeney Todd. :D


	29. Trouble Makers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Indie distracts herself from the worst of the trauma while Violet seeks answers...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pulling a throwback to previous chapters in this one because I conveniently forgot that Indie was present for certain Events... There'll be some plot bouncing, but hopefully I haven't made it too confusing. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled timeline of events next chapter. :)
> 
> Warning for mentions of domestic violence?

I.

Indie Sargent has never known pain. Not like this. All her life, she slips through the cracks, neatly, unseen, unnoticed, and unscathed. But this time… this time, she can’t escape the ghastly tableau set out right in front of her: a cold hint of every ill she’s ever missed, tied together into the only raft capable of floating her off this island, already set adrift, too far from land for her to catch.

All she knows is her entire family’s screams keep ringing in her head, an imprint of a corner of hell she hadn’t realized had been coming for them all along. She doesn’t stick around to see the worst of it. Her parents won’t let her. One swift punch from one Lynch to another, and her mother shoves her, roughly into her father’s arms, up and out of the line of fire.

She follows Gansey’s lead, into the kitchen, heart pounding, body sick with impending foresights of everything that could possibly come of this. He barks orders at her, urgent multitasking as he dials three digits into the landline. _Get out_. _Go to a friend’s house_. _I don’t care where. Just don’t come back for the rest of the night._ _Do you hear me, Indigo? Don’t come back unless you hear from us._

He grips her by the shoulder, one handed, while he fumbles with the phone with his other hand. She’s never seen her father so rattled in her life. “ _Go_!” She hesitates, knowing that Sargent and Violet are still in there, experiencing the worst. Violet may be fending Ronan off, but Sarge… her brother deserves a safe escape route just as much as she does.

“Daddy, Sargent’s still in there! We can’t-“

“Never mind your brother. He’ll- he’ll be fine,” Gansey insists at a swallowed gulp, a little too swift to be true as he waves her off with one desperate hand. “Just _go_.”

She can hear Violet’s shrieks, bereft with agony and terror, from here. A cold chill slices through her at knife point. “I’m not leaving without Sargent.”

But her father doesn’t give her a choice in the matter, as another hand falls to her shoulders. Gansey’s grip slides away as he gives a concise nod to Noah, standing behind her. Noah eases her toward Monmouth’s rarely-ever-used back entrance. For emergencies only. Well, emergencies seem to be stacking up lately… She remains quarter-turned the whole walk to the door, fighting to get a glimpse at her brother, a little snippet to prove to her that he can fend for himself, or otherwise, find his own escape route. But he’s nowhere in sight from this angle down the hall and Gansey won’t heed her call, no matter how much she screams after Sargent.

Noah has to catch her around the waist to keep her from ducking out of his hold and racing back into danger’s grip. She kicks and clatters her way down each step, imagining the worst for her family and the infinite nothings she can do about it. Not in a million years did she, or anyone else, see this coming. The Gansey-Sargents and the Lynches have love in their hands. Always have, always will. They built this family out of deep respect and affection for one another and Ronan Lynch is breaking each and every bond one pounding of fists at a time.

“Noah… Noah, please. I have to go back,” she begs, as soon as they’re down in the empty lot behind Monmouth. “ _I have to go back_!”

He still holds her around her shoulders, twisted now, face to face, and stock still, unwilling to accommodate this girl made out of flailing limbs and insistences to save her brother. “Noah, Sarge isn’t a fighter- he can’t _defend_ himself!”

“And what are you going to do?” Noah wonders. Indie knows Noah. She knows he can be easily swayed to her side if its noble enough a cause. “Barge in there and pull him out? Indie, Ronan’s too unpredictable. He could knock you out in a single blow. Just… listen to your father and go find Sam.”

For once in her life, Indie doesn’t _want_ to go find Sam. But she climbs on her bike and goes, grumbling all the way. She thinks about waiting for Noah to turn back into the house, or otherwise disappear, before circling back around to Blue Lily’s front entrance. She stands there, hand poised on the door, at war with herself. How strong is her self-preservation? Until now, she’s never known. All her life, the pull to save innocent people from impending danger has tugged at her, a compulsion she must see through before she can carry on with her day.

The sinking stones in her stomach tell a different story, and she’s never known fear like this before. Fight or flight kicks in. She’s not like Vi. She can’t throw a punch without a second thought, trusting it’ll land where it needs to. Vi’s spent hours teaching her to fight, true enough, but her small stature and gentle, kindly nature keeps her from hurting a single soul.

She can’t do it. Not if she knows going in there could very well lead to more people getting hurt.

It’s a choice she regrets, as she sits sulking on Sam’s bed, propped up against the wall, one knee hugged close to her body. “I could’ve stopped it,” she mumbles, cheek pressed sideways against her knee. Sam glances back at her from the floor-length mirror, where they cinch the knot of their tie upward against their throat.

 “ _Could_ you?” Sam wonders seriously, smoothing down their royal blue suit jacket, fingers poised to fiddle with their cufflinks.

She blinks. Of course she could. Is this not what she does? Indigo Sargent spreads love. She breathes it, permeating the air around her, until it clings to every last soul in the room. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, in the panic of the moment, nothing could dissipate the hate in Ronan Lynch’s eyes, or his spiteful fists that reached for husband and daughter in a way that no husband or father’s fists ever should. She’s never used her power on her own family members. It’s always felt an unfair advantage. But she never once thought perhaps they were all impervious all along…

Or maybe the love once felt between Ronan and Adam is far too long gone to salvage. Not even by a perpetuator of love, a catalyst to guide it along. Not even then. Had she known sooner, that their situation was dire, maybe she could have…

But now it seems dishonest, forcing a feeling on two people who can barely stand to be in the same room together, like someone slipping a love potion on an unrequited lover.

Sam’s suit clashes gloriously with their new hair, a screaming neon siren of pink and green, defying gravity with a healthy dose of hairspray. The air still clings thick with the stench of aerosol and Indie coughs as she chokes it down. They’re done fussing with their elaborate evening wear and they crawl on the bed to greet her properly. She’s caught them in a busy moment, and her words of panic only barely register as they prep for a family night out at some high class society event.

They lean in to offer a quick peck on the lips, taking up her hands in theirs. “Look, this is not your fault. There’s nothing that you could have done one way or another.” One hand reaches up to smooth fingers through a thick lock of pink hair, from temple to tip. Indie’s mind races with _if onlys_ and Sam’s eager to distract every last one of them out of her now that they’re untangled from the task of dressing for another charity night thrown by affluent parents. “You did what you could to save yourself. And you’re safe. That’s all that matters.”          

Except it’s not all that matters. Indie’s just one person in a sea of people who matter. One single person. While she was being rushed out of Monmouth, a man she trusted held five people she loves hostage. Five people who may not be as safe as she is right now.   She shakes her head. “This just isn’t who I am. I don’t run. I head straight into the heart of a problem and solve it. It’s what I do…”

“And that’s what makes you so exceptional,” Sam concedes. “But sometimes, you have to walk away before a problem eats you alive. Not all problems can be solved by one little girl.”

“I’m _not_ little,” Indie broods with a huff, brow furrowed in defiance. “I’m not a child. I don’t need to be protected. Everyone else. _They_ need protecting.”

“Indie…” Sam shakes their head, trying their hardest to get through to her. “Not everyone can _be_ protected. Not in situations like this.”

“Sam, he hurt my friend. He could have hurt my brother too.”

Sam’s fingers disentangle with Indie’s as their arms wend their way around her in their commiserations for the horror she’s seen. No one deserves this. “I know. The best you can do now is keep yourself out of harms way. In the meantime, what if I give you a good old fashioned distraction?”

Indie huffs back a sigh. “W-what?”

“Come out with me tonight,” they insist. “My baby sister is bound to have a dress that’ll fit.”

“Sam, I can’t…” Going out and having fun is the last thing on her mind right now. It hurts too much, knowing she’s here with Sam, and back at Monmouth, the worst could be happening right now. She’s guilty for making it out alive, without a single scratch.

“You could be a _princess_ …” Sam entices her, already nudging her up off the bed and toward the door of their room so they might slip into their sister’s across the hall. “And I, your ever so dashing escort. Presenting Her Royal Highness: Indigo Jane…! Hey?”

“I don’t know, Sam…”

Their baby sister in question has clearly finished off their dressing for the evening, as her room is well and truly vacated. Sam strides toward the closet and begins sifting through the plethora of multi-coloured dresses and skirts hanging there. From the back, they pull a rosy pink chiffon dress, puff sleeved, and modest, but elegant, like a gown straight out of a Jane Austen novel. It’s more whimsy than Indie can bear right now, all cotton candy dreams. “You’ll look amazing…” Sam entices further, so far to no avail, holding up the dress against Indie’s body. “The prettiest cupcake there…”

With a huffing sigh, Indie relents. “Fine, but only because I have nothing better to do while I’m here.”

“Good.” Sam passes her a concise nod as she snatches up the dress and disappears into the bathroom across the hall.

They’re right. She _is_ a princess in this dress. Albeit an unconventional one with vibrantly coloured hair, but with Sam by her side, that makes two of them: a pair of royals, rebellious to the teeth.

She’s bubblegum, more than usual, with her hot pink hair and rosy dress. It’s almost too much, except Sam loves it, as they snatch her around the waist and pull her in. Indie lets out a little squeal as they plant a resounding kiss to her jaw, buzzing with laughter against her skin.

They don’t kiss like Vi and Sarge (thank god for that). No persistence, or intense longing. Just mutual giggles against lips and disbelief that they’re both here and they have _this,_ with a person they adore. Tonight above all nights, Indie counts her blessings. Sam is one to keep. A promise to keep her heart unscathed.

“You look perfect,” they whisper against her, squeezing her tight. “Let me do your makeup.”

Indie sweeps her hair up in intricately twined braids, forming an elegant crown pulled taut against her skull. Sam’s sister boasts an impressive collection of ribbons, incandescent in the artificial light above them and it too twines around each fine knot of hair. Meanwhile, Sam plies her with glitter and pastel eye shadows, fit for a fairy princess. She is Titania in miniature, ruling over her woodland forest with a careful hand. Maybe tonight, she too can play mismatched matchmaker and create unsuspecting lovers found in unexpected corners of a ballroom. She’s no trickster, but her thrall remains strong and well-intentioned. Whatever love she couldn’t fix in her own home may be balanced out there, in the world instead. Lovers are always looking for each other. It’s time she let them be found.

 

II.

 

They spend their evening ducking behind ice sculptures and deftly avoiding Sam’s parents, keen on rolling out their gender queer child as some sort of consolation prize for the crowd to gawk at. Sam grabs Indie by the hand and shuttles her, laughing (always laughing) out across the room of luxuriously dressed revelers. Most of them are middle aged couples sipping champagne and following them with a disapproving eye. But neither of them care a whit what people think when they let the pompous music of the orchestra sweep them up midway through their escape, a mock to-do as Sam whirls her around the room in a wide circle.

A party’s not a party if no one’s having fun. So they make the fun. Sam approaches well to-do people of importance with a sweeping bow and introduces Indie beside them with the most extraordinary titles they can think of on the fly. _Princess of Monaco_. _High Priestess of Spain. Cupcake High Commissioner of Gumdrop Lane…_ They get increasingly more ridiculous as the night goes on and they steal more flutes of bubbling champagne from passing waiters.  

If they’ve made a mockery of Sam’s family in their innocent fun, their parents are going to have to catch them first…

Sam leads her out onto the terrace, breathless and winded from laughing so hard. Indie falls against them, too overcome with this overwhelming delight in this silly game they play. She finds she doesn’t have to work to send her Cupid’s arrow spinning out of its bow. Her unsaturated happiness does it for her, sunshine on a cloudy day. Sam may be leading her on a merry chase of trouble-making, but it never stops her magic from doing what it does naturally in bringing people together. The air shifts wherever she goes, easing tensions here, settling conflicts there. Something in the way it knocks molecules in the atmosphere askew gives the younger, lonelier members of the crowd the confidence and peace of mind to approach the people they wouldn’t have otherwise. No going home alone tonight. Not this time.

Tonight, Indie makes futures happen, and she’s perfectly happy to give it away for free, no questions asked.

“You’re allowed to say it, you know,” Sam digs, sending an elbow jabbing into her side. “I was right. _You’re_ having _fun_.”

Indie can hardly handle the smug look on their face, beaming from ear to ear like it’s not already the natural state of their facial structure. Who is this strange person of hers and how did she get to keep them? “Oh, shut up. Only you could make a stuffy yacht club party _fun_.”

“You and me, babe,” they correct her, pulling her arm gently overhead to spin her, their own little music box ballerina, wound up and turning carefully on command. “I insight the fun. You just happen to enable it.”

“Uh huh.” Indie stops spinning on the spot, still stretched up on tiptoe, angling for a kiss nearly a foot above her. “Keep talking.”

“We make a good team, Indigo Jane,” they elaborate for her.

“That’s _Princess_ Indigo Jane to you,” she corrects, wending her arms around their neck to pull them down to her level. Glitter shakes off upon them both in a shower of fallen stars from Sam’s generous applications.

“Oh yes, my mistake, _Your Highness_.”

Indie lets out a little hum of approval. “Now that’ll do,” she confirms, and seals the deal with a kiss.  As far as distractions go, this one is not so bad after all…

 

 III.

 

Days later, the less sunshiny of the two Monmouth girls finds herself no closer to understanding who she is after everything she’s lost. The trouble is, Violet doesn’t know what she’s lost in the first place. Yet, she still feels the hole, keen in her chest and she doesn’t know what she’s expected to fill it with. Sargent does his best to recap the past two weeks of their relationship, recreating what he can between lazy mornings and evenings in bed, late-night ice cream dates, and stargazing in Cabeswater,  but everything else is just… gone. Blotted out from her brain like an eternal lunar eclipse.

Adam and Gansey are on full battle station mode, she knows. She just doesn’t comprehend _why_. Why go through so much trouble for her? What terrible thing has been wrought that they would go through such lengths to protect her? She doesn’t need protecting… She’s sure of it.

Or at least… she used to be.

Now, she’s just Violet big gaping hole in the head Lynch and no scaffolding can fix this leaky roof. Who the fuck was she and who the fuck is she supposed to be? The thing is, she’s no different from the old Vi. She remembers the old Vi just fine. But she feels an intrinsic part of her was rattled loose with the concussion. She can tell its true, just by the way Sargent looks at her sometimes, struck by the nuance of something she’s done or said. Like she’s too gentle for the girl she used to be. Like whatever jarred the memories straight out of her took her bite too. But the sneer on her face feels wrong, too practiced to be genuine Violet fodder and she has to tuck it back away for a later day when she feels more like herself and Sargent will stop looking at her like he’s never seen her before. Hell, lately, she looks in the mirror, and she doesn’t know the girl staring back. She shows off her trademark Lynch snarl to the girl on the other side of the glass and the mimicked expression reflected back at her just doesn’t sit right.

Sometimes Sargent steals up behind her, pressing close, and tells her he loves her either way. She knows he’s just being kind, and that’s just Sargent’s natural way, but she pulls away from him nonetheless, extricating herself before his mouth can hit home, buried in the crook of her neck. He’s clinging and it’s too much when for her, only days ago, he was just her best friend, and knew what his boundaries were. Now, they’re together, in the closest of ways save one and Violet barely knows how they got here. She’s not ungrateful, she just no longer knows how to be the girlfriend Sarge has come to know, love, and depend upon for the past two weeks. Not without reinventing her completely. Violet worries when she does, Sargent won’t like the girl she’s become.

Sargent may not like the girl she is _now_ …

So Violet rectifies the situation the only way she knows how: by getting answers.

She takes her bike and rides, following the route from Monmouth she’s done countless times by now, and doesn’t stop. It’s not far, but she takes the long way, to clear her head and figure out what she wants to say, what she needs to ask. She rides as far out from Monmouth as she can get, without taking a total detour from her destination at hand, in order to keep from turning around and heading home the minute she changes her mind.

But her goal remains steady, kept in her sights and she does not waver, even when the cold chill seizes in her blood and settles, uneasy in her gut. There is every chance this could end badly for her. She’s headed straight into the eye of the storm: a heavy risk she’s willing to take in the name of figuring out who she is.

She leaves her bike in an inconspicuous nest of trees, in order not to raise immediate suspicion when she walks down the gravel drive, surrounded by the familiar sights and sounds of the city’s outskirts. It’s all grass, peaking out beneath melting snow and fields for miles, the dotting of red ramshackle farmhouses peeking up here and there. The air still smells of clinging winter, unwilling to let go and face upcoming spring as a bleak February turns to a brighter March. The only good to come out of this month is Sargent Gansey, born on the thirteenth, as if in anticipation for Valentine’s Day and everything he’ll come to deeply represent. February gave her love, and for that, it cannot be faulted. But all at once, it took love away from her, and with it, her mind.

A friendly reminder of why she’s here.

She strides up the path, purpose at her heels. Pushes her shoulders back, straightens her spine, and prepares herself. Her memories may have been bashed out of her, but whatever broke her did not take away her bravery. That remains well intact even now, as she knocks at the sliding door of the house. A sharp concise knock.

The inhabitant within doesn’t expect visitors and does not answer immediately, in hopes that their guest might get the hint and leave. But Violet stays strong. And knocks. And waits. And knocks. And waits again. Still strong.

Finally, a heavy tread sounds through the other side.

_Deep breaths, Vi. You can do this._

The door slides open with a bang, not out of aggression, but out of inattentiveness, as the man who greets her is far more concerned about the girl he finds standing on his doorstep.

Violet’s heart pounds up in her throat. Here goes nothing. “Hi, Daddy.” She greets him hesitantly, more like an old friend than a victim to her abuser.

Ronan Lynch stands on the threshold of the Barns, arm flung wide to catch a tight grip on the doorframe, a swift recovery from the blow of finding his thoroughly corrupted daughter standing before him like a ghastly peace offering he doesn't deserve.


	30. Opportunity Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violet gets answers and Ronan finds a loophole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of complex victim/abuser relationship stuff going on here... none of which I condone in any real life situation, but which make for plotty intrigue nonetheless... 
> 
> Warning for hints of emotional manipulation? Just a bit?

The bruises splotching across his daughter’s face still showcase a violent masterpiece of sunset colours that makes Ronan want to wretch in its accusations he’s not prepared to face.

“Jesus Christ, Violet,” he breathes, barely a whisper, unable to look at her without remembering every last detail of what he’s done to his own daughter. 

She had it all figured out, knew exactly what she wanted to say; exactly how this would go. But she finds, seeing him here now, everything she rehearsed on the way here has gone out the window, tossed to the wind with every other memory of the last two weeks. Now, all she sees is her dad, the man who raised her, and molded her into who she is today. And she can’t control the _force_ of such a familial pull. “Daddy, _please_.”

Little does she know, her words harken right back to the last thing she said before Ronan bashed her face in. But Ronan remembers. He _knows_ what he did and it eats him up inside and leaves him faint at the sight of her: starker evidence of his every sin than his husband ever was.

When she throws herself at him, he expects a second round: revenge, served cold. He’d deserve every punch she flings at him. But her arms wind around his chest and back, reeling him _to_ her and close, closer than is likely _legal_ ,given what he’s done.

He doesn’t hug her back, like all those many times before when she demanded comfort from him, and he would oblige. He can’t oblige her this. Not this time, when his hands have brought her to ruin. Her and Adam both…

He tries to step neatly out of her reach, but she’s obstinate, like that little girl who used to cling to his legs, a staunch refusal to let him leave her sight. His mind casts back to the times the family would listen to music in the kitchen, while the adults cooked and Violet would climb up on Ronan’s feet and he would box-step her around the room. Had she been so small and fragile once?

God, but she looks so small and fragile _now_ , shrunk down to this lost girl on his doorstep. And _he_ did this to her.

So why is she here?

By all accounts, she should be furious with him. She should be shattering into a million shards of moonstone: one for anger, one for spite, one for heartbreak, one for betrayal… His daughter should be an endless cascade of emotions, yet this one here, she’s offering him now, is none of the above.

She buries her face in his shirt, closer still, and this is _far_ too much. He’s comforted her a thousand times over throughout her life, but this time… this time, he can’t offer her comfort for the things he wrought. This pain can’t be whisked away by a kiss and a bandage, swiftly applied to console the tears and make it all better. You can’t make it all better when you’re the perpetrator of your child’s worst nightmares.

He clears his throat, desperately hoping that maybe if he stands still enough, she’ll go away and he won’t have to confront this damned unavoidable problem staring him in the face.

He’s kept away, out of both self and lawful restraint, for a full week. The first three days he filled with self-loathing and shame, first for the bitter knowledge of what he’s done and second, for the protective order placed on his head, preventing him from seeing his daughter, holed up in hospital beds, waiting to be healed by kinder hands. There are no apologies to make up for this. He’s done the unforgiveable now and he doesn’t deserve whatever twisted clemency Violet’s brought him.

Sulking. Sulking is what he’s done the past week. Fingers flexing and unflexing, in desperate reach for a phantom bottle he cannot- _will_ not indulge. His body shakes with need, a bitter dependency on the drink to see him through. But it’s the drink that got him here in the first place and he can’t abide one more drunken slip-up, railing against his family- people he loves, and his daughter, a person he _constructed_ with his bare hands and careful thoughts. She was born from the drink, a careless night’s miscalculation, but she was never unwanted. And he doesn’t want her any less now.

But he can’t have her. He knows that, no matter how much she wants to stay. Finally, _finally_ , Violet releases him, eyes downcast and lashes fluttering. Her hands clasp, unaware of what to do. “I just… I missed  you.”

Ronan closes his eyes, squeezes them shut tight. He can’t deal with this. He needs a drink. With a wave of a hand (shaking, from the withdrawals or from the ongoing confrontation, Ronan doesn’t know), he leads her in. From the fridge he pulls his first beer he’s touched since the incident and pops the lid on strict autopilot, strong armed to his will. He feels his daughter’s eyes on him, no judgments, just quiet contemplation upon her father who will almost always, without fail, have a beer in the evening, to see the day’s end. To the Violet of two weeks hence, it’s an ordinary force of habit, a thing that feels like home, like the rest of the Barns…

They settle in the living room, also home, Ronan resolutely refusing to look her way. She watches him intently, flopped up against the middle of the couch, knees spread wide, and fingers poised against his temple as if he’s staving off a headache. She realizes soon enough he’s not in the mood to talk. “Did you really do it?” she asks, barely a child’s breath. “Did you do what everyone keeps saying you did?”

 _Christ_. One beer isn’t strong enough to see him through this conversation.

“I don’t… I don’t know what you mean,” he murmurs carefully, unwilling to engage unless expressly asked.

“I think you do.” Even now, full of riddles Ronan can’t bear to crack, Violet’s posing a challenge. Her face is a clear enough reminder of what she means. But he’s not willing to entertain it.  She leans forward in her chair, staring right through him in search for answers that churn his stomach with their cold truths. “Daddy, Sargent… Sargent says you hit me.” Violet purses her lips, her fingers reaching up to graze the bruises across her pretty face. God, what has he _done_ to her? “But I don’t understand… why you would _do_ that. Why he would _say_ that.”

Ronan takes a swig of beer with a swift tip of his bottle. She watches each mechanism of his throat work as he swallows it down. He understands this situation as little as she does. They’re both so full of questions, too many to give any complete answers to one another.

“But he’s wrong,” she insists, shaking her head. “Sargent’s wrong. Because you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t hurt me.” Violet’s working herself up to tearful hysterics, he can see it coming from here. Tears well up in her bluer than blue Lynch eyes- those eyes they both share- and her lip quivers. “Tell me you didn’t do it. Tell me he’s wrong. Daddy, _please_!”

He can’t tell her what she wants to hear. So he turns his head and unfolds his palm across his face in such deep dejection. Dejection and regret. Violet’s own hand trembles as it follows the same path, only cupping around her mouth, heartbreak spilling from her eyes, tipped buckets of saltwater from seaside blues. “No. Daddy, _no_!”

Her words fall like a punch in the gut and the memory is all too visceral. Her screaming, her flailing limbs struggling beneath him, the feeble mewls as the fight drops out of her. God… he could’ve _killed_ her. And he’s known all along, of course. But not like this. Never like this. He wishes he could stride across the room and take her up in his arms and fix this. But that’s not how this story goes, and he was stripped of that fatherly right the minute he laid a hand on her.

It takes her an extended moment to sputter through her tears before she asks the next damning question. “Why?”

The beer bottle suddenly feels heavy in his grip, too heavy to bear with the truth like gravel in his throat. He sets it down on the coffee table, scraping it away from his reach and his guilty conscience. “I was drunk,” he confesses, quiet, still unwilling to give his daughter the eye contact she deserves. He can’t recall what he’s done and see the look on her face as he does it. “I have…” He swallows back his pride, just this once. For her. “I have a problem. Violet. I’m sick and I haven’t been myself.”

Violet’s blood runs cold as she assumes the worst. “Sick like how?”

As if she doesn’t already know. “Sick like an addiction.” His hand passes over his eyes and lingers there, too sick with the truth itself. It’s the first time he’s put words to it- his deep, dark demons come to dance manic on the surface for all to see. “Sick like an _alcoholic_.”

Violet doesn’t know how they got here, or the stages Ronan passed through to make his descent into what he’s become, but all she feels now is pity, sunk deep in her heart for a broken man. She doesn’t remember what he did to her, and maybe she’d rather forget when he’s suffering, like an old dog too tired to be anything but put down. “We can- we can figure this out,” she insists, determination colouring her cheeks, previously wan with the initial horrifying truth. “You can get better. I can _help_ you get better.”

“Violet…” This isn’t her fight. Her fight started with fisticuffs and ended with a concussion, rushing ambulance sirens, and a night in jail for her attacker. He doesn’t get to keep her pity. “What do you know?” She lost something in that fight. He realizes that now. Just how much, he has yet to discover.

“Just what you’ve told me,” she admits. Her hands settle, twisting in her lap now. “The last two weeks… they’re _gone_. They say I lost them in the concussion and I don’t… I can’t bring them back.”

 _God_ … Violet…Those should have been his memories snatched away, not hers. Never hers. She has nothing to gain from losing a piece of herself. Not like Ronan does. If he could go back and start again, he would have been more attentive with Adam. He would have been gentler in his nudges about his work. He would have cherished every moment he still has with Violet, instead of grieving for a daughter he hasn’t even lost yet. He wouldn’t have reached for that drink, again and again and again. Maybe if he lost his past month of hell, he wouldn’t be sitting here with Violet now, guilt churning in his gut. Maybe Adam would be here with them and they could start anew, make a better go of it.

He can’t erase his own past. But he _can_ rewrite Violet’s.


	31. Forest's Daughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sargent hasn't heard from Violet all day. He suspects Cabeswater's to blame... 
> 
> He's not wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a rough plan for this chapter, but then I kinda went "meh" and decided to go completely off script. So mark this as the first of many weird and wonderful timey-wimey Cabeswater adventures, happening a lot sooner than I envisioned. It's gonna get hella strange up in here...
> 
> Lyrical reference is "Johanna" from Sweeney Todd.

I.

It’s been hours. Sargent didn’t question it. Not at first. Violet never answers her phone, not even for him, not even if she’s in the middle of a break down and needs someone to talk to. She prefers to set aside her demons in person, with a pair of arms to hold her close. If something’s happened, she’d come home to him and settle the score. She always does. Doesn’t she?

She slipped away, inconspicuous as a shadow while Sargent puzzled over math homework- not his forte. Not a word, not a nudge, not a text. He doesn’t want to be the needy boyfriend, given he knows she wants her space after everything, but he tries to get in touch over radio waves. Several calls, several texts. No matter what he says, he’s met with resounding silence.

 

II.

 

_12:24pm_

_Hey- where did u go? :O_

 

_12:42pm_

_Legs, where r u?_

 

_1:36pm_

_Vi pls answer ur phone!_

 

_2:03pm_

_Violet._

 

_3:00pm_

_Violet._

 

_4:00pm_

_r u ok? D:_

 

_4:30pm_

_Violet._

 

_4:32pm_

_VI!!!_

_4:35pm_

_VIOLET! U TEKNOFOBIC ASSHOLE- ANSWER UR FONE!_

_4:40pm_

_Violet Lynch…_

_4:41pm_

_Pls call me._

_4:42pm_

_Pls come home._

_4:43pm_

_Please._

 

_√ Seen at 6:15pm_

III.

He doesn’t like wandering through Cabeswater on his own. Not if he can help it. Cabeswater is, and always has been, Violet’s domain. The forest parts its branches for her, clears pathways for its queen. Without her, there’s something sinister about the thicket, and a clumsy boy like Sargent is likely to get lost, tripped up on his own feet and turned the wrong way around. Cabeswater is likely to swallow a delectable boy like him right up. No crumbs, no way home. And then where would Violet be?

Not here. That was becoming abundantly clear. Not after calling her name, on the phone and into the verdant void around him. No Violet, no Legs. No nothing.

No Violet.

Either she’s not in Cabeswater, or she’s wandered too far in for him to brave. Maybe Cabeswater’s swallowed her up, twisted him around, given him a different view, just to keep her from him that much longer. He stands there, reaching out for her with every ounce of magic he has. If she’s here, right now, standing in this very spot, in a different season, a different time, he might just…

A line or two of Sondheim flits through his mind in his search and he grabs hold of the lyrics, hardly singing, sweet and kind, as usual, but screaming it into the trees as he stomps along the path, loud as he can get.

_I feel you, Johanna._

_I feel you._

_I was half convinced I'd wake up_

_Satisfied enough to dream you._

_Happily I was mistaken,_

_Johanna..._

The ley lines hear him, its energy ricocheting against his voice like a sonar. Feedback screeches back against him, nearly bringing him to his knees. An unseen force tries to strike him down. A tree branch, a fork of lightning, the wind, a bird. He doesn’t know. All he knows is he’s woken something in the forest and its telling him to get out. But he won’t. Not without Violet. He carries on his plight, the lyrics sinister as the forest on his tongue, the only way he knows how to send a threat, his own carrier pigeon out into the evening winds:

_I feel you, Johanna,_

_And one day I'll steal you!_

_Til I'm with you then,_

_I'_ _m with you there,  
_

_Sweetly buried in your yellow hair!_

The winds whistle around him, picking up debris on the beaten path. A bird: crow, or raven, or perhaps even owl comes at his face, with driving wings. He throws arms up like a shield, but sharp beak catches across his cheek and tears until he bleeds.

At last, a body forms on the leyline, upright and staring dead at him. But it’s shadowed, and stays back, unmoving. Sargent tries to take a step toward it, holding out hope that it’s her.

But the sonar whistle still vibrates in his ear, matching the oscillations of the line itself, pounding like an earthquake beneath his feet. He’s woken something, something devastating, and he can’t tamp it back; doesn’t know if he _wants_ to tamp it back. Not if it means spitting Violet back out of the forest’s grip. If she’s even here. He hums bars from _Into the Woods_ , loudly, sure to hear his voice reverberating around the rocks and cliffs and trees abound.

Another figure appears, creeping out from behind a tree, featureless, and equally as shadowy as the last. They stand there, twin mysteries, swaying in the wind. They don’t move. They don’t breathe. They _are_.

He hums louder, the winds pounding harder.

Another body on the leyline. Shadowy, faceless. And still no Violet.

He gives up any musical technique whatsoever and begins screaming out to the dead air, pulling tight around him, arms raised in challenge. “Where is she? What’ve you done with her?”

Voices whisper against his ear, breathy and entirely inhuman, like all the times the forest speaks to Violet and she speaks back. But he doesn’t understand what Cabeswater’s trying to say.

Four bodies stand on the leyline now, one for each direction. They move, gliding wisps on the wind, nary a human action between them. With a swish and a gasp, there one minute, gone another, they reappear, jolting Sargent into a start, closed in on him.

Right in front of his face.

 

_Quem quaeritis?_

Four voices shriek at him in unison, the sound distorted by the interference in his head left between the leyline energy and his magic. The line crackles with bluish light, pulsating as the magic ripples through him, right on the surface. His whole body feels doused, as if each of these wispy figures have slipped right into his core and settled there, a silent protest against his mission to retrieve his dearest love.

“I don’t-“ he presses an arm over his eyes as if to protect himself from the shadowy creatures surrounding him. He has nowhere to go. “I don’t understand! I’m not like her!”

The trees whisper above them, leaves rustling in what he hopes is an agreeable nature. _Flos,_ it breathes. _Viola sororia. Filia arborum. Magum et greywaren._

“Greywaren,” Sargent ponders the word, familiar on his tongue. His brow furrows, understanding, joined by a sense of doom pressing down upon him. “Yes! Greywaren! The Magician and the Greywaren! Violet! Yes! Where is she?”

_Viola sororia. Non est hic._

Non est…?

“She’s not here,” a voice comes, this time in English, echoing four-ways, mere inches from him. Sargent startles again to find Noah, multiplied, and solid, more solid than he’s ever seen him, while the leylines sizzle away. Sargent blinks and the four figures boxing him in falls away to one, and there stands the family ghost, as real as if his soul had never parted from him. “You need to leave.”

Sargent frowns, his heart pounding away with the ominous magic at his fingertips. “But Violet…” His fear settling into his bones is nothing, nothing at all, compared to his need to find her. It’s been five hours. Longer, by now. Why would she hide?

“Violet can take care of herself,” Noah coaxes, though the grim set of his mouth is no comfort tonight. “At least for now.”

“But you know where she is,” Sargent realizes with a jolt. Noah knows _everything._ He was fool not to come to him in the first place! “Where has she gone?”

“That is not a secret for me to give away.” He’s solemn as he says it, eyes downcast and sad. And although the leylines are at their strongest, feeding away at Sargent’s magic, he fades until there’s nothing left but a Cheshire cat mouth, set melancholic, and even that flickers out before Sargent’s very eyes before he can even beg for another hint.

He turns back for home, checking his messages for the millionth time. Nothing. No hide nor hair of Violet Lynch. Not even the trees, not even the spirits, not even the leylines, which each care for her most, are willing to cooperate in his search.

And yet… A voice calls out to him, soft at first. Too soft for him to notice. But there it is again…

“Sargent?” Violet. It’s Violet’s voice, calling out to him, rasping and careful, through the trees. He turns this way and that, eager to identify from whence the voice comes.

“Violet?” he calls. “Violet?”

“Sargent… Sarge…” her voice is desperate, reaching and reaching, but never finding. He can feel it now, burrowed deep in the marrow of his bones, singing through the strings of his heart. “Sargent please.” She’s crying. Wherever she is, that harmonic voice of hers is tearful. “I miss you.” His face scrunches at the words.

_What?_

“Violet… Violet, I’m right here. I’m right…”

“I need you,” her voice rasps, choked off by a rattling breath and carrying on its desperate plea as if she hadn’t heard him at all. “Sargent please… I can’t… I don’t… I don’t know who I am without you. I don’t know what I’m doing and everything… everything’s wrong. Sarge…”

He runs, runs to her, toward the sound of her voice, scared and helpless as she is, out here in the wilderness alone. _Oh god, Violet. How long have you been out here?_ Knowing Cabeswater’s tricks, it could be days. It could be weeks. It could be months; _years_ …

And yet…

There she is.

She’s kneeling, hands clasped as if in prayer, in the middle of a clearing, eyes to the heavens, asking, waiting, _begging._ For something. She looks different. Ragged. Sharper around the edges. Even more like a feral thing, bedraggled from the woods. Something’s changed about her. Thick, dark eyeliner once rimmed her lids and lashes in fine wingtips, long since smeared and running vertical dribbles down her cheeks. Her bottom lip swells, as if from a fresh fight, and it trembles as she seeks him out. Perhaps most shocking of all, however, a hank of her hair is missing, from where he stands, he thinks it’s just a semi-circle behind her ear. But as he draws closer, hidden behind the brush, nearly half her mass of beautiful curls is gone, left with an ink stained calling card, dark and brackish, swirling permanent behind her right ear, too small to be made out from here. But it looks like a brand. Like maybe she’s done it herself. Or someone’s done it _to_ her.

She carries on, babbling away. “Sargent, please. Please come back.” And yes, she _is_ crying. Crying like he’s never seen her before, so disconsolate, so broken. What destroyed her so utterly to bring her here, to her knees, calling out his name as if he’d reached death’s door?

But he’s right here. Right here for her, no matter what horror she’s been through to turn her into... this. Whatever this is. “Vi,” he sighs, part in relief, part to pacify, as he’s done many times for her before. Soothing Violet out of her darkest of nightmares is his specialty, after all.

“Sarge…” she tries again, sniffing ugly through her tears. “I know I’ve done… horrible, _horrible,_ unforgivablethings lately. But if you could just come to me now. Just this once… _Please_.”

He doesn’t need to be asked twice. He takes a deep breath. And steps into the clearing.

But something else has a hold of Violet Lynch and it drags her down like her father did before it. A creeper of vines pulls taut around her legs, slithering flowers up her body. He screams for her, rushing to fight Cabeswater off, but it tugs at her, pulling her under, beneath the Earth, and she goes willingly, no shrieks of terror, or fighting it off, as Violet is wont to do. The last thing he sees before the purple flowers swallow her up is the sharp cut of black ink, whorled calligraphy perfect behind her ear. A twofold initial, intimately familiar as if from his own hand:

**_SG_ **


	32. Found Creature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noah sets the record straight concerning Violet's whereabouts... sort of. Adam goes barrelling back into the heart of the storm to retrieve her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't feeling this chapter after my Christmas hiatus, so I'm kinda meh about it... Hopefully we'll pick right back up though because something big is coming... ;)
> 
> (Also, pop by _Famous Last Words (Put on the Black Dress)_ for added not-quite-canon post-Moonage pain.)

I.

Sargent comes home in such a state of shock, his mother has no notion of how on Earth he made the drive back in one piece. Pasty-faced and shaking, he looks as if he’s seen a ghost. His eyes glaze over, lost in a malevolent foresight he can’t quite shake, and he stumbles, blind, right past her.

Blue grabs the sleeve of his jacket as he passes by. “Sargent,” she addresses him, sharp but careful, fingers squeezing vice-like around his forearm. He isn’t just drained of colour- he’s positively _green_. She shakes him. “ _Sargent_.”

He turns his head, barely acknowledging her, yet somehow still looking straight through her, the light in his eyes dropped out, leaving the caramel gleam cold and dead. “She’s gone. Cabeswater took her.”

Something out there, in the great wide world has muddied her sweet, optimistic boy, addling him irreparably. She guides his shock-stiffened body toward the couch and forces him down. “Sargent. _Who’s_ gone? What did Cabeswater do?”

He shakes his head, his gaze arrow-straight on nothing at all. “V-Violet. Cabeswater swallowed her up. Cabeswater took her back…” Something in the forced verbal response shakes him out of his haze. He blinks, his focus clearing at last. The fine veil over his eyes falls away in a sheen of repressed tears. “Mom. She’s gone.”

“No, my sweet baby boy.” Blue does her best to comfort him, lull him back into safety from whatever has claimed him, out there in the unforgiving forest. Her hands soothe up and down his arms. “Violet’s fine. She’s just fine.”

He blinks again, slower this time, as if he struggling to comprehend foreign words. “You _know_ that? She came home?” Something akin to hope slices through his doubt.

Blue sputters, her lips unwilling to shape around a bald-faced lie. The truth of the matter is, she, Adam, and Gansey had assumed she was with Sargent. As she always is… They had nothing to convince them otherwise… Not when Violet is such a creature of habit. Of course, nothing’s as it seems anymore, not with her parents’ marriage iceberg sunk and sinking still, leaving her entire life upended. With all the change happening around her, Violet’s starting to come wildly off her hinges, swirling into the unknown. “When did she leave?”

“S-sometime in the afternoon. I went looking for her everywhere but she…” Tears well up afresh at the trauma unfurling like a Venus fly trap around an unsuspecting morsel. “She’s gone.”

He keeps saying that like he knows something. Like he’s seen it with his own eyes. She can’t just be _gone_. Violet Lynch disappears from time to time, turning up all on her own when she’s good and ready. This is more rebellious teen angst. Blue is sure of it. But she’s also never seen her son so riled. Not since he watched, helpless as Ronan pounded the memories right out of her…

“Sargent.” She squeezes his arm a little too tightly in her urgency as a thought strikes her. “Did you try the Barns?”

Her son’s face contorts beneath his ugly mess of snot and tears. “What does it matter when I _saw_ her? She-she could’ve been wandering through Cabeswater for _days_.”

Blue’s blood runs cold. “What do you mean? Sargent… What do you mean, you _saw_ her?” Thoughts of a body floating up out of an icy, black lake forms in her minds eye, blue and bloated before it could even be found.

“I mean, I saw her. She-she looked different,” he musters up an explanation as best he can, given the surreal visions he’s seen within the past hours. “…like she’d been in a fight. But also like half of her was missing. She was upset about something. Kept calling my name. And then- and then Cabeswater took hold of her and… she was gone.”

Memories of intrepid explorations of Cabeswater and the leylines drudge up scenes of horror- lies, spewed by dark forces whispering in the forest. It’s what they do- throw you off the scent, keen on total annihilation if you don’t leave when nudged to do so. “Sargent, listen to me. You were seeing things,” she insists, certain that the forest was simply screwing with its intruder’s mind. Without Violet there to protect him… It’s no wonder he’s rattled. “It wasn’t real. Cabeswater just _wanted_ you to see that. Sargent, it wanted to _scare_ you.”

If Cabeswater wants him scared, he’s scared.

“But he’s not wrong,” comes a voice from around the corner. For a second, Sargent body shudders, the sound an icy reminder of the four shadows, closing in on him on all sides, screaming against the wind.

Noah wanders into the livingroom, arms crossed over his chest. The smudge across his cheek is more pronounced than Sargent’s ever seen it, yet the rest of him shudders, barely contained in his liminal state. He’s a shadow himself, skull scraping through his facial features, prominent through his skin. “She’s not in Cabeswater. She wasn’t then, she isn’t now.”

Blue’s rapid heartbeat slows to a steadier pace. “See? It’s fine.”

But Sargent’s not so sure. Omnipotent, all-seeing Noah’s here to set the record straight. “But Cabeswater _did_ take her.”

Blue’s head snaps up, away from its careful attention on her son’s hands, now pressed safe into hers. “Noah…” she warns, panic seeping back in. This is no time for games…

“It’s not the Violet you seek. Cabeswater’s not where you’ll find her.” He shrugs, nonchalant, and turns away, extricating himself from the conversation at hand.

“Noah!” Blue exclaims at her entirely unhelpful dead friend. “ _Noah Czerny_!” But he’s already gone, back to the leylines, back to nonexistence, where Sargent suspects some part of Violet has gone too. “Noah Czerny, get your ass back here and explain yourself!”

Wary, Sargent watches his mother fight to bring her friend back to no avail. He’s bone tired after all of his confrontations bounced between his magic and Cabeswater and he no longer knows what’s real anymore.

At his feet, Blue rises with a frustrated sigh. From her fringed vest pocket hanging low against her hip, she pulls a cell phone and dials a number. With a purse of her lips, she waits for the spaces in between dial tone and pick up. Nothing comes. She tosses the phone onto the couch cushion beside Sargent, swearing under her breath as she does so. “Of course he wouldn’t answer his phone,” she heaves an impatient breath. Noah and Sargent’s combined words rattle her overprotective mom senses to life.

“Mom… What are you doing?” Sargent doesn’t know whether to be relieved or horrified at his mother springing to action. He swallows back the fear left over from his ill-fated adventure of the day and hopes she knows what she’s doing.

“I’m getting Adam,” she confirms, already shuffling out of the livingroom and down the hall toward Adam and Ronan’s room. “We’re going to the Barns.”

 

II.

By all accounts, Adam doesn’t want Sargent here for this. He’s already seen too much of his family’s suffering and he of all people doesn’t deserve any more. Adam’s already inflicted enough pain on the Gansey-Sargents simply by inflicting himself upon them after all these years. He didn’t have to. Ronan had always been five seconds from refusal when Gansey insisted upon having everyone under one roof. Maybe he should have listened… maybe Ronan was right all along. Maybe if they’d lived their separate lives, he, Ronan, and Violet together as one family, and Blue, Gansey, Sargent and Indie as another, they wouldn’t be facing such misery… Maybe he could have gotten through to Ronan earlier on. But now it’s too late and he’s holding his daughter against him like a bargaining chip.

If Blue’s right and Ronan has Violet…

Adam doesn’t know what he’s going to do.

 No. Adam knows exactly what he’s going to do. He’s had it planned for days, quietly tucked away in the lining of twin suitcases since his daughter checked into the hospital, concussed, bruised, and bleeding. He won’t let him hurt her again. He _can’t_.

Blue and Adam drive. They convince Sargent to stay at Monmouth, but just barely. Adam trades his car keys for Sargent’s safety and Blue follows him out into the crisp night air. He’s not fit to drive anyway. Even the thought of Violet, back in Ronan’s clutches is enough to make his heart pound, sick in his throat, and his fists clench in that unwelcome way that speaks of violence that runs in both sides of their little family…

He won’t be that man. He didn’t come this far to deliver blows to his only child.

He’ll make this right. He _has_ to.

Blue takes up Vi’s purple suitcase, piped with pastel floral patterning, without question, although the purse of her lips speaks of her wariness for his plan. She doesn’t have to like it. Nobody does. They pack the bags into the trunk of the Mercedes Benz Adam bought to celebrate his first year in court. The copper hatch of the sedan slams shut with finality and Blue gives him one last glance, a chance to change his mind. But he seals the deal with a nod, firm and silent. His hands slide deep into his pockets as she watches her climb through the driver’s side. Adam doesn’t get into the passenger’s seat until he’s affirmed she’s buckled in.

They drive, Adam buzzing with anticipation rotting in his gut the entire venture out. Blue tries to talk him out of his nerves, but her words only serve to make matters worse. He’s not ready for this confrontation. He’s not ready to tell Ronan he’s confiscated all rights to his daughter. Neither a divorce, nor permanent restraining order may be in the books any time soon, but Adam still has the right to run. All he can hope is Violet will come willingly when he calls.

Adam’s stomach does a sick little turn when he recognizes his daughter’s bicycle, propped up in a ticket of trees as they begin to pull up to the farmhouse’s gravel road.

She’s here. With Ronan.

“Adam…” Blue warns from beside him. She’s barely pulled the parking brake, and he’s already tearing out of his seatbelt and reaching for the door. The automatic locking device clicks into place, boxing him in, Blue’s finger poised on the button from the driver’s control panel. “Breathe. Don’t be rash about this.”

“Blue,” he insists, scrambling for the lock on his door, but Blue won’t ease up. “He’s got my daughter!”

“I know,” she replies, sightline following the dashboard, and out toward the barns. “But you can’t just go barreling right into a fight. That’s what he wants. That’s what you both have been doing all along and it’s not working. For either of you.”

“I don’t have any other choice.” This time, when Adam reaches for the lock, Blue releases it with a click and a relenting sigh. There isn’t anything they can do but let it happen. They both know that now.

“We’re bringing her home to Monmouth when you’re done here,” Blue demands. The way she stares him down over the hood of the car says she means business. “I need my son to know she’s alright. They deserve closure, Adam. At least give them that.”

Adam’s face scrunches for a moment, grief for the new lovers taking over. But he swallows back the inevitable consequences of his actions with a concise nod. “Wait here. If I don’t come back out with Violet in half an hour, call the police.”

Blue’s chin dips in the affirmative. She looks about ready to convince him to get back into the car, but she thinks better of it. “Go,” she says instead, before she can change her mind.

Adam doesn’t waste any more time. He pounds on the front door, prepared to use his key if he must. Storming the keep is last resort, and he wants to do this as respectfully as he can: an in and out job. But Ronan won’t grant him that, and he knows to await the worst on the other side.

The door slides to willingly enough, greeting him with a mass of dusty curls, glinting golden against the moonlight’s glow. Violet. He chokes at the sight of her, young, clumsy, naïve. Unharmed. Just a child. Just a lonely, lost child.

_Violet, what are you doing here?_

“ _Dad_.” She’s surprised to find him here. As if the first person who might come to look for her might be Sargent, and not her father, worried sick at her prospects. Well, she isn’t wrong… It’s not Adam’s fault Sargent was simply looking in the wrong place…

“You’re coming home.” Adam puts his foot down for the first time in months. He, Ronan, Gansey, and Blue have always been lenient in disciplining their children. But this? This has got to stop. “Right now.”

Violet’s face scrunches, one part confusion, two parts defiance. His stubborn daughter… He’d spent the whole drive over considering how Ronan would put up a fight. Yet here Violet is, staring him down with pert rebuttal. “But Daddy, I _am_ home.”

Adam doesn’t know how to combat this. What does he say to a girl who’s been brought up here, in this house, on this farm, for the majority of her life? What does he say to tear her away from her _birthplace_? She was born on this land. Ronan pulled her right out of his _head_ , here in this house. And Adam and Blue came running, just like they have now, to bring her home. Yet this has been her home all along. And he has no more right to tear her from it than Ronan has to tear her from Adam.

“Violet,” he addresses her, careful, careful, _easy does it_. “Let me in the house.” When he raises his hand, prepared to move her out of the way or drag her into the car if necessary, she flinches back, a violent, visceral, involuntary tick. The gesture holds him still, lowers his hand, douses him, as if it’s he whose been struck.

 “Dad doesn’t want to see you,” she annunciates carefully, arms crossed. Her step back holds firm. She keeps her distance.

Adam eases out a sigh, deflating on the spot. “I’m not here for him. I’m here for you.”

Violet, resilient daughter, willing to fight anything that moves, keeps up her defensive stance. Her walls are up. God only knows what garbage Ronan’s put in her head. “He said you’d say that,” she murmurs. Defensively. “What right do you have? When you abandoned us?”

And there it is. Adam’s heart drops right to his toes, Ronan’s harshest words straight out of his daughter’s mouth. “You knew he was sick. You knew he was like this and still. You didn’t come home. Why don’t you ever come home to us, Daddy?”

“Violet,” he breathes, squeezing his eyes shut tight. Maybe when he opens his eyes, and looks into his daughter’s face again, the nightmare will fall away from his reality, and there she’ll be, ready and willing to come home. But when he counts to three, opens his eyes, and finds her there, on the front porch, hands still crossed, hostile as ever, he knows he’s already lost her. “Violet, please don’t listen to his lies.”

“He’s not lying.” The composite of rocks in his stomach gathers heavier still. “I may have lost two weeks of my life, but I know how you weren’t there. For me or for Dad. Some days, I wouldn’t even see you at all.”

It’s not a lie. Adam knows. He knows he’s been an absence in his own family. He’s heard it enough from Ronan by now. But hearing it from Violet, who stands to hurt the most from his neglect… It hurts. “I know,” he relents, running his fingers up through his dusty hair. “I know I haven’t been around enough for you. But this is not the answer, Violet. You’re not safe here, with him.”

He can tell by the look in her eyes that she’s done with this conversation. She takes a different tack. “Is it true? Is it true you’d rather give up on him than help him through this? You think divorce is the answer?”

“ _Jesus Christ_ , Vi…” Adam’s hands press behind his head as he whirls on the spot. He can hardly look at her anymore, she’s just so… Ronan. “Violet, _listen_ to me. He hurt me. Not as badly, or as obviously as he hurt you, but he hurt me. I don’t feel safe with him anymore. And I sure as hell don’t feel comfortable leaving you here, with him, when he could very well put you in hospital again.”

“I can take care of myself,” Violet bites back. “You _know_ I can.”

Adam can hardly breathe with this twisted reasoning. “I know you can, but none of that matters when we’ve already tested that theory and it ended with Ronan, pounding your head into the floor. Violet, this is not the man you want to be living with. _Please_. Come home. If not for me, then for Sargent. He’s worried sick about you. Please. You’re safer with Sargent than you are with Ronan.”

“She doesn’t want to go home with you,” a voice hisses, malevolent from deep in the shadows at Violet’s back.

Heat flares deep inside him, setting the rocks in Adam’s stomach aflame. He can’t stand by and watch his daughter be corrupted anymore. “You did this to her,” he seethes, charging at the doorway, paying no mind to Violet, standing in his way. She hits the door jamb with a startled cry but Adam’s already reaching for Ronan. Ronan doesn’t budge from his position against the wall. “You _dare_ lay a hand on her, then lure her here to spoon feed her lies!”

 Ronan’s laugh is bitter and manic, gargled beneath Adam’s hand on his throat. “I didn’t have to lure her here, asshole. She came all on her own. Guess she was tired of waiting up for you. It hurts, doesn’t it? Knowing you’re in the wrong.”

Adam slams him harder against the wall. Ronan just grins, knife’s edge sharp, sharper than it’s been in years. “If you think _I’m_ the one in the wrong here, you’re more fucked up than I thought. I want those divorce papers signed. And I don’t want her anywhere near you ever again.”

“Desperate, aren’t you?” Ronan antagonizes further, squirming under Adam’s grip to get into a more comfortable position. Adam’s right hand, pinning his shoulder to the wall won’t let him. “Can’t get a restraining order because your daughter can’t testify. Can’t get a divorce because your husband won’t sign. And Violet… Oh, sweet thing just waltzes on in here without a care in the world. Don’t you, my darling girl?”

Adam dares to sneak a glance back at his daughter in question and how she fairs with this new development. Her brow crinkles, torn at this confrontation, playing out for her sake. She doesn’t know what to think or how to react, but he sees her, backing toward the door, searching for her escape route.

Good.

She could have chosen fight over flight as she did the last time she found her parents in this compromising position, but battered, beaten, and broken Violet 2.0 is uncertain and backs down in a fight.

“Please stop fighting,” she breathes, a quiet broken sound for a quiet, broken girl. “I’m so sick of the fighting.”

The melancholic lilt in her voice, not of a defiant teenager, two years closer to adulthood, but of a scared little girl who fears this- this is going to be the fight to end all fights. Because one of them will finally walk away and never look back.

But Adam and Ronan have already had that fight. She’s just too rattled to remember it. “I’ll come home,” she surrenders, hands up, white flag drawn. “If it’ll make you stop fighting, I’ll come home.”

Ronan snarls under Adam’s grip. He’s not giving her up that easily. “Violet,” he warns, a snapping dog, leaping at his attacker. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“Don’t mess with her head,” Adam hisses back, tightening his hold. They’re so close. All she needs is one more push in the right direction and she’s out the door. “She’s confused enough as it is.” He turns his attention back to his daughter, distraught and uncertain. “Violet, honey, Blue’s waiting in the car. She can take you home to Sargent. Please. _Go_.”

Between Ronan and Adam, neither are her safest bet. The best way to get to her now, is through her heart. Sargent. Sargent will be enough to bring her home. Adam’s sure of it.

She takes another step toward the doorway, one foot standing on the front porch. Adam releases a breath of relief. _That’s_ a good girl… Violet hesitates on the precipice, lip quivering with indecision. “Are you coming, Daddy?”

Adam realizes all too keenly that she’s addressing _him_ , not Ronan. And he realizes too, that Ronan’s not going to let her go this easy. But she’s her own woman, making her own decisions in life. And he can’t hold her. Neither of them can.

But Adam can fend Ronan off.

“I’ll join you later,” he manages, swallowing down his pride when Ronan begins to push back. “Just, get to Blue and tell her to go.”

He can tell, just by the questions riddled across her face, that she won’t leave without him. It’s Adam, or Ronan, or not at all. Adam sighs, squeezing his eyes shut tight once more. “Violet, Sargent thinks you’re dead. Please, just go home to him.”

There. It’s enough. Adam silently thanks his godson for his role as the ultimate trump card in his daughter’s heart as he watches her turn her back once and for all. She runs, tripping on her own feet as she glances over her shoulder at her parents, locked in a battle of wills that will turn savage all too soon.

 

Five…

Four…

Three…

Two…

 One.

 

He lets go of Ronan and embraces the hell that comes for them both.


	33. Death Glares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violet hits a new emotional low as she returns to Monmouth. Meanwhile, Adam and Ronan reach an impasse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for suicidal thoughts, gruesome metaphors, and domestic violence.

I.

Violet’s been cycling through between hysterics and subdued indifference the whole drive back to Monmouth. Blue can’t get a coherent word out of her without her slouching back against the leather seat or pulling up taut against her seatbelt, desperate to turn back for Adam, facing a fight alone; facing a fight that should have been hers.

This is all her fault. All of it. Seeking Ronan out when she knows strife is at hand between her parents… But even before that. Keeping Adam and Ronan hanging by a thread in a miserable situation, simply by virtue of being their shared _thing_. Sure, they shared this beautiful creature- this beautiful, loved _daughter_ between them, but did it make them love _each_ other any more? If anything, Violet’s existence bred resentment, ignited, a slow burn until their loose canon blows. They’ve been on the precipice for years and she’s become their trigger, a steady _ticktickticktick… tick… tick..._ Awaiting a boom that stutters like an old landmine, slow on the uptake before it blows.

Maybe… maybe if she never existed, they would have moved on long ago. Adam would make partner in some big shot law firm in New York or Seattle or LA. And Ronan… Ronan would be happier, here where his family home remains untainted by the torment that has been a frightening portion of his marriage. He’d make something of himself, with his cars, with the farm, with his gentle hand with children deserving of a second chance…

Once upon a time, they both had a gentle hand with street-roughened youths desperate to be heard. If things had turned out differently, she might have had a foster sibling or two by now…

But she rang the death toll on Ronan’s head, by being their living, breathing daughter. She made them happy once. The three of them, the three amigos, were a perfect little family who would pack picnic lunches and spend afternoons in Cabeswater, where one father quietly wove flowers through her hair with diligent fingers, while the other told stories about a cozy home life and adventures deep into the woods. That uptick of her lips and the lazy comfort of the dappling sunlight on their gathering spoke of peace, of calm. No troubles, just… _them_. A togetherness Violet hasn’t seen in years now.

One day, Violet took a bite from the apple of the world and grew up, miles high, and couldn’t make herself stop. Ronan Lynch, her adder in the garden, her _god_ has been searching for the antidote for years now, to no avail. His little girl becomes a woman a little more every day and it splits him in two.

It splits _them_ in two.

And what can she do now? What can she do for these two people who once loved her- loved _each other_ \- so unquestioningly, fighting life’s natural order? She can’t stop herself from living short of…

 _Dying_.

She would have to _die_ for them to make this stop. And beneath her shaking hands, pulled inside balled up sleeves, she doesn’t know if she can grant them that.

But Ronan’s dying for her right now. _Adam’s_ dying for her right now. They’re killing each other, slow and painful. And for what? Not for love. Not to preserve her, formaldehyde secure, sealed tight in specimen jars. Those pretty hands, kept eternally pure, devoid of aging wrinkles, or arthritis in her thin wrists… Those dusty curls, snipped clean from her head, and hung across the brow of a steady dummy’s head. And her body… mummified with the finest jewels, kept sarcophagus fresh for centuries to come. Ice her over, wake her up in twenty, thirty, forty years from now, when technology can reverse the aging process, or sooner, when Ronan Lynch knocks on death’s door himself.

Why can’t they love her as she is now? Why can’t they love her like…

She slams herself forward, palms hitting the dashboard. “Stop the car!” Blue passes her a furtive glance, surprised to find her goddaughter looking alive, after ten straight minutes of depressive sulking in the passenger’s seat.

They’ve barely pulled into the driveway of Monmouth, but Violet can see a figure standing in the first floor window, curtains parted in lingering hands. They’re gone in an instant, and Violet wants out of the car.

Blue’s barely rolled to a stop, but Violet’s seat belt comes off and she’s already pitching straight out the passenger-side door.

Sargent fumbles with the glass door entrance to Blue Lily for a painstaking moment, a clumsy stumble in their reunion. Only a brief hiccup before he rushes to her, and Violet rushes to him. Blue pulls into a parking stall, finally putting the Mercedes into park and leans out the window to watch as her goddaughter throws herself at her son, a mutual rugby tackle, teetering him almost to the ground.

“Oh my god, _Vi_ ,” Sarge chokes out, tearful, nudging her face into his cupped hands. Violet swallows back a desperate laugh at his clear panic. “Oh my god. I thought you were in Cabeswater and I went on my own and I… oh _god_. You’re _okay_!”

He presses her tight up against him when he surveys her damage and confirms she’s utterly unharmed, her face smashed toward his collarbone where his shirt hangs lopsided, a few sizes too big. Her fingers curl, nails dug into his shoulder blades. She leans upward, and closer, trying to fit herself, puzzle piece perfect into the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry… I wanted to get answers and I… I didn’t think…”

“It’s okay,” Sargent breathes, his heart pounding away a different story in his throat, in his chest, against his wrist… He fills himself up with Violet, here and now, and safe in his arms, to flush out Cabeswater’s depiction of a frantic, bedraggled, broken Violet who had already lost a great deal too much before the forest took her back into its clutches. “It’s _okay_. It’s going to be okay.”

Violet’s heart thunks hollow, terrorized with that _tick tick tick_ of _I want to die I want to die I want to die_ she’s never felt before _…_ She burrows into his throat and stays there, breathing him in, breathing in _life_. Breathing in all that life that Sargent’s been harvesting, that he’s willing to share with _her_ , long into their future. Because a future with Sarge in it isn’t a future at all unless she’s there by his side.

She wants to articulate how she left Adam… left him at Ronan’s mercy, but she can’t form the words without remembering why that persistent death wish niggles at her ear.

Her words are warm and wet against his skin when they come, a choked message in a bottle, cork-sealed tight, sent by castaway lips, parched for relief. “This is going to kill them, Sarge.”

_Or it’s going to kill me._

II.

He’s not drunk. That he knows for certain. Appearances must be kept for his little girl. Promises made to be better. Promises made for _her_. It’s a faint buzz, a soft, fuzzy, pleasant little thing, that crosses over the threshold of his brain, only muddling his perception the smallest of iotas.

Beneath his hands, Adam’s not so certain. They tussled, Ronan wrangling Adam flat to the floor of his childhood home, where many a boyish wrestling match took place well before this one. Right now, Ronan’s not drunk enough, nor volatile enough to pack a punch. Instead, he’s tired, and wind-torn after Violet turned tail and ran the other way at Adam’s slightest provocation. He’s willing to hold him still, hold him captive, while he thinks up a suitable punishment for his erstwhile husband for letting his daughter flee, when he finally, _finally_ had her in his hands.

“What are you doing, Ronan?” From the looks of things, he’s not the only one given over to weariness for their pitiful game of tug-of-war. “What are _we_ doing?” The question’s a breathy one, puffs of air as if forced out of smoker’s lungs.

“I loved you once,” he grits out between his teeth, face moved in dead-close to Adam’s, crown pressed into the floor beneath him. “ _Once_.” He lifts a finger in illustration, then realizing the irony of it all, finds himself laughing, a small, cold thing, buzzed between pursed lips. His gaze burns hellfire and Adam is smote on the spot. “And isn’t that the fucking kicker, Parrish? Didn’t you start this mess by giving up on us first?”

“ _You_ gave up on us, Ronan,” Adam bites back, straining against his hold. “ _You_ did that when you chose to drink over keeping her _safe_. She’s your daughter and you _hurt_ her. You’re just as bad as _he_ was. And if you’re going to hurt her like my father hurt me, you don’t deserve to have her. You don’t deserve _anything_.”

“I want joint custody,” Ronan hisses in response, too quick to let himself absorb the painful truth that still haunts him, even now, two weeks past. He’s crossed the line, exposed his daughter to the very abuses he pulled Adam away from with his own father, fists flying then too. “I’m not signing your damn papers unless I get her in the deal.”

Adam blinks, slow, a struggle to comprehend his daring demands. “You’re _fucked_. You’re fucked in the head if you think you have any legal right to ask for that.” He shakes his head, neck strained to the side to keep the beer on Ronan’s sickly warm breath off his face. “After what you did to her, I don’t want her anywhere _near_ you. The only reason you even got so much as a _glimpse_ of her today, is because _she_ came to _you_.”

“And isn’t that _interesting_ …” Ronan sneers right back at him, drawing his knee up into Adam’s gut at the smallest sign of retreat. Adam grimaces beneath him at the pressure digging into him. They’re not _finished_ yet. Not by a long shot. “Seems she’s quicker to forgive than you are. And what does _that_ say?”

“It says she doesn’t know a _thing_ ,” Adam hisses back, his head lifted up, as if to bash him in the face and roll away. But that’s a Lynch manoeuver and he’s barely that anymore. “She’s confused and scared and you’re the _last_ person she should be seeking out. Not when you could bash more than just memories out of her if you lay a hand on her again.” He can’t quite shift up onto his elbows, with Ronan pinning him down, but he leans in to meet him glare for glare, as close as he can get, so he can read him loud and clear when he says, “I don’t ever want her to see you again. She won’t make the same mistake twice. I won’t let her.”

“You forget-“ No. _Ronan_ forgets. He forgets how he offered, multiple times to teach him how to fight. How Adam refused him. Once. Twice. Three times. Until things became too dire and he could avoid it no longer. He’s as well-versed in the fight as Violet is, if less trained for passion and precision.

He’s at an awkward angle, no matter which way he swings it, but he knocks Ronan in the jaw with a knuckle’s blow nonetheless, catching him off-guard with the strike. It’s enough to push him off and roll away, slightly winded.

Adam knows he doesn’t have time on his hands. He whirls to his feet as fast as he can, palms raised as Ronan follows. “You make a single move, I press charges.” He takes a tentative step back, testing his boundaries. How much is Ronan going to let him get away with? One step? Two? Give him a head start to run.

Ronan knows he can’t afford a second strike. Not when Adam has him pegged in every legal regard, just _waiting_ for him to slip up. He snarls back at him, lips parted from his teeth, animalistic and cruel.

Adam counts three steps before Ronan slams back into him, pinning him back against the wall, right back where they started. “You’re a fucking nightmare. A fucking kick in the head.” Ronan rattles him, crashing him hard, once more, head tilt whiplash, crunch collision, before he carries on with an unbelievable nod of his head toward the door. “Get out of my sight before I do something I’ll regret.”

Adam scrambles, no hesitations for a single second, a swift rush to the door. No looking back. Violet’s bike, stashed in a cloud of bushes at the end of the drive calls. He’ll be home to her soon, sweat soaked, and adrenaline thrumming at the prospect of what he’s about to do.

They’re going to leave here. Slam the door on this horrific era of their lives and run, a new adventure for father and daughter, driving straight into the horizon where they can’t be touched for miles.

He’s going to get her the fuck out before anything bad can touch her again. He won’t let it get that far. Never again.

Never. Again.


	34. Swirling Galaxies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violet makes Sargent a promise, but Adam's plans to keep her safe makes it difficult to keep...

I.

 

Violet’s thoughts are full of her parents and Sargent can’t shake it off no matter how much he coaxes her into distraction.  She won’t entertain his whimsy until Adam comes home to them, in one piece or otherwise.

Sargent fusses with her hair, taking more time than usual to focus on tucking her curls behind her right ear, as if he’s searching for something. He tries to pass it off as just another comforting gesture, but he won’t lean down to kiss her temple there, as usual. Instead, his hand hovers, disbelieving, working through some complex mystery, buried deep in his head.

They’re out of sync again, and this keeps happening far too often nowadays. Here they are, preoccupied with very different trains of thought, with no way to catch up without a hint of communication. But Sarge is still too rattled to put words to his latest traumas and Violet… well, Violet’s apathy keeps her own words at bay.

Finally, he stops fussing with her hair, his fingers slipping their way down across her cheekbones, and lifting her chin. He peppers her with a light dusting of butterfly kisses, nuzzled against her nose. “Hi,” he breathes, soft against her cheek. Somehow that single syllable is enough to bring her to life and her lips uptick in a careful smile she’s not quite permitted herself to give. A little piece of her peeks out of the dark, deep hollow of soil in her heart, and blossoms, a faded imprint of who she once was.

Her hands reach for him, the moment feeling somehow bigger than it is, her fingers pressed safe against his strong, sure Gansey jaw, and her lips seeking his, parted, breath hitched. A desperate mewl of a moan parts from her before she can stop it, a thrumming vibration between their joined lips.

Sargent always kisses her like he means it, but right now… right now, he kisses like he still searches for something, and aims to find it deep in the recesses of her mouth, pull it from its mooring and untie it from its dock. He’s asking something of her, something she can’t quite unravel without the added use of words. His fingers do their usual exploratory tap dance, pressing in _everywhere_ , as if expecting her to evaporate in a puff of smoke...         

She loves this boy, loves him like no one else, but god _damn_ , is he ever needy.

He drowns in her, refusing to draw breath when there is none left between them. She tries to pull away, but he clings, still smarting from whatever he saw in the woods. “Sargent.” When she pries him away from her face, he redoubles his efforts, buried in the crook of her neck. “ _Sargent_.”

She sighs, arms so full of clingy boy. “Sarge. _Stop_!” Violet holds him at arm’s length, shoulders pressed beneath a white-knuckled grip.

He sags, whole body limp with defeat in her firm grasp. “How am I supposed to know?” he demands, forehead pitching far forward so he might collide with her sweeping collarbone. “How am I supposed to know if you’re _real_ or not?”

Violet stills, hands slid to his chest. “Sarge… what the fuck?” the words tumble out of her, breathy and compact against his disbelief. “I’m fucking _real_.”

Sargent’s brow scrunches, utterly pained. “But how do I _know_?”

She sighs. “For fuck’s sake. Nothing’s fucking real. _Everything’s_ fucking real. I don’t fucking know!” Her voice pitches up one too many octaves while her own crisis grips her. Being a dream thing doesn’t make room for absolutes. By all accounts, Violet Lynch is not normal. A whole human being doesn’t just blossom forth from her father’s head. That’s not how life works. Yet somehow, the leylines provide. Without a dream, half her family wouldn’t be here. Daughter of a dreamer, granddaughter of a dream. How does she reconcile with such a warped reality when she’s hardly real herself? All she knows is, she’s given a limited time pass on this world- far more limited than the average human being. When Ronan Lynch leaves this mortal coil, she leaves with him, a fresh young thing, still bright, and full of potential she could never quite claim. How can you form a fulfilling life for yourself when you know you only have so long?

Violet’s hours ticking past, one step closer to inevitable death.

And maybe death is easier to take than living when you know it stands at your door with a sweetly thought-out offering of cyanide laced chocolates and roses with thorns sharp enough to prick…

Then down she’d go, a real life sleeping beauty, like the very princess she’s named for. Her parents had some sick sense of humour, naming their dream daughter after her dream grandmother… Violet Aurora Lynch… what a sickening joke, one more reminder of her miserable fate.

“I’m going to die,” she sighs, a chill ripping through her, raising the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. “You knew it, I knew it. This whole damn family knows it. And there’s not a thing I can do about it short of waiting until my father does something foolish, or dies of old age. Either way, I don’t have a choice.”

Sargent’s deep brown eyes are wide and moist with unshed tears. Whatever comfort he was searching for has only been buried by worse fears. “He’d keep you safe,” he murmurs, although his words lack in conviction. He’s too weary to help her, just as she’s to weary to help _him_. Sarge knows what he saw and with Violet’s morbid words chasing the memory down, it doesn’t bode well for her.

He doesn’t know if what he saw was real, but Cabeswater has a reason for all its sights and sounds. One day, Vi will go searching for answers. And the forest will protect her from impending danger as best it can. Sargent’s just sick at the thought of not being there to protect her himself when it happens. “Promise me you’ll tell me if you need me,” he begs, knowing full well such a small demand is almost impossible to keep.

“Sarge…” she sighs, her fingers finally curling around his hand. “I will _always_ need you.”

That’s not what he means though, and she knows it. “But when you _really_ need me. When something horrible happens and you can’t make it through on your own. Violet, please promise you’ll tell me. _Please_.”

Her mind dwells on the cutting feeling deep within her: that notion that her parents would be better off without her; finally free to pursue their own individual dreams without her weighing them down. She’s the reason they can’t, or _won’t_ move on and it’s killing her inside. Even more, it kills her that she _welcomes_ such dark thoughts. But she can’t tell Sargent that. She _can’t_. All she can do is _live_ , if not for herself, then for him. Because he of all people would want her to keep going, not for any selfish reasons like Ronan or Adam, but simply because having her here _means_ something; means _everything_.

So she silently vows to keep herself out of harm’s way, for Sarge’s sake.

This will be her promise.

 

II.

 

Unfortunately for Violet, promises are made to be broken. Adam Lynch carries a guarantee in his mind, in his heart, in his hands, in his email inbox, in the trunk of his car. He has plans for his wayward daughter that don’t involve Sargent Gansey: a clear hitch in Violet’s decision to keep out of harm’s way. Arguably he just wants what’s best for her, and in his eyes, what’s best is a hotel reservation and a full tank of gas.

She won’t go quietly. Adam knows this. He spends his morning quietly conferring with Blue and Gansey over a steaming mug of coffee. Their concerned chatter falls silent the instant Sargent stumbles into the kitchen, Violet groggy at his heels.

“Violet.” Adam sucks in a breath. Blue and Gansey exchange worried looks, sending him one last glance, plainly asking _are you sure this is what you want to do?_ Sargent’s own gaze shifts between them, brow furrowed with unsettling curiosity over the suspicious situation the adults have thrust them into. What are they plotting?

Violet slumps down heavily onto a bar stool, curls falling in her face as she props her sleep-addled frame up by an elbow. She slept badly last night, even in the safety of Sargent’s arms. Her dreams filled with wildfire, sweeping through her fields of budding flowers, caught with morning dew. The flame tongue licked the earth molten, reducing the fine, soft petals to ash. She felt the inferno swallow her up, choke her down, and leave her gasping for a breath that just wouldn’t come, as that weight pressed down along the column of her throat and _squeezed_. Sarge’s body sprawled loose against her, arm flung over her stomach, but in no way suffocating her in his hold.

There are no stars in her dream that night. No comets, streaking down to Earth to be swallowed up by the loving embrace of vines, planting them there, roots and all. Just… darkness, the light blown out of its swirling atmosphere. Not even the moon hangs over her blackened canvas. What’s left of it is but a sliver, greedy bites taken out of it by lycanthropes, too wary of their own existence to carry on under its pull.

Everything burns up, everything lain to waste. A part of her, deep, deep down in the recesses of her soul worries she’s picked up a sinister premonition, and this foretells disaster in her future.

One depleted of Sargent Gansey, and the love and life that comes with him.

“I was thinking we could go for a drive,” Adam explains, eyes only for his daughter. Adam Lynch is a man on a mission and Violet eyes him with wariness to match.

Violet scowls her moody early-morning scowl at him from across the bar and behind a curtain of hair. “Where?” she inquires, curdled with the concept of having to be out and about in the world this early.

Adam shrugs. Visibly. “Just… about. It’s been a while since we’ve taken a long drive into the countryside.”

His daughter stares at him, nonplussed. “Dad, we _live_ in the countryside. That’s what the Barns _is_.”

He sighs. “Just… humour me? Just this once?”

Violet stares him down, wondering how long it would take to wear him down before concluding that fighting with Adam just isn’t worth the effort. “Fine… I’ll go. Whatever…”

“Vi…” Sargent starts from beside her, significantly more alarmed by this sudden move on Adam’s part. They only just got her back. He doesn’t know what he’ll do without her for another day, even if he does have an inkling where she’s going this time.

“It’s okay,” she insists, laying a hand upon his forearm to hold him quiet. “I’ll call you when we’re back in the city.”

 Gansey and Blue exchange another significant glance between one another. They know very well Adam’s robbing his daughter of a proper farewell and lord knows, Sargent deserves one.

Blue lets out a huff, unable to contain herself anymore, and makes her way around the bar. Before Violet can comprehend it, she’s got a face full of Blue, she downy scent of laundry detergent permeating through her night shirt filling her nostrils. “You enjoy yourself while you’re out, okay? Don’t give Adam too much trouble.”

“Wh-what?” Violet splutters, as Blue squeezes her extra tight and releases her without further ado.

Meanwhile, Gansey claps Adam on the back with a terse, “don’t do anything stupid, okay? Call if you need anything. Anything at all.”

“God. What is this a going away party?” Violet bites out, sardonic as always, stiffened as Gansey takes her up in his arms in due course. This is far too much hugging for one morning… “Seriously, what the fuck? I’m coming _back_.”

“I know, my darling. You are,” Blue confirms with a tight nod. Her fingers catch in her thatch of hair, pressing in safe and affectionate along her goddaughter’s jawline. Violet suspects she’s halfway to pressing a kiss to her brow, but she thinks better of it. Blue winds a golden curl around her finger before tucking it behind Violet’s ear, then turns to Adam, all business-like once more. “Do you have everything? Water? Snacks for the road? Directions?”

Adam nods, distracted as he quietly goes over his mental checklist to himself. “Positive.” He turns to Violet now with a lift of his wrist to check his watch for the time. “Did you wanna get dressed and then we’ll hit the road?”

 She sputters. “What- _now_?”

“Yes, Violet. _Now_.”

He gives her enough time to have breakfast with Sarge before scooting her off to change. Sargent follows her into the bedroom and closes the door behind him with a quiet snick.

“Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks something weird is going on here,” he bursts out, like he’s been holding it in for far too long. He presses himself against the door and watches as she rummages through her drawers and grabs the first shirt and jeans combo she finds.

 “I mean… I’m sure it’s nothing,” Violet replies, turning her back and pulling her pajama top over her head. Sargent quietly considers the delicate knobs of her spine and the way her shoulder blades pull taut as she raises her arms to receive her clean shirt over a mint green lace bra. The dark fabric of her tank pulls over long torso in an elegant roll. He finds he wants, more than anything, to slide his hands over that vast expanse of skin beneath and just press her close, back to chest, for an extended moment before Adam whisks her away from him again. “They’re all just being overly dramatic. You know what they’re like.”

Violet steps out of her silky pajama bottoms printed with baby pink cherry blossoms, leaving her standing in deep purple underwear. From the waist down, she’s all legs for days. “Turn,” she demands, gesturing with a swirling finger to him: a curt request for privacy.

He turns, his sight line raised to the ceiling as if to further avert his gaze. “I _do_ know what they’re like. And they seem concerned.”

Violet sighs, now righting herself in a fresh pair of dark wash jeggings. She grabs up Sargent’s letterman jacket draped across their desk chair and swings it over her shoulders. Sarge can’t help but pass her a fond grin as she untucks her curls from the collar of his jacket with a flick of her wrists. He’s a little more broad in the shoulders than she is, but otherwise, it’s a cozy fit. The sleeves run a little long, long enough for her to slip her hands deep within the cavern of the cuffs. He feels a sudden urge to snatch up something of hers to return the romantic gesture. “You should grab a cardigan. Just in case.”

Violet raises a brow as she approaches, shoulders slumped and strangely casual for a questionable situation such as this. “If I’m not mistaken, I think _you’re_ rather concerned, Sargent Gansey.”

He lets out a considering hum and reaches for the hem of her jacket, tugging the two pieces of her zipper into place. “Would you expect any less of me, after almost losing you yesterday? You put me through my paces, Violet Lynch.”

“Always keeping you on your toes.” She smirks, but the smile never quite reaches her eyes. Deep down, she knows a storm’s brewing and her father is driving her straight into the eye of something beastly. She could say no. Stand her ground and refuse to leave on whatever madcap adventure Adam has in mind. And yet… Her lips downturn, that half-assed grin flipped exactly reverse. “Sarge…” She swallows back her fear. It doesn’t hurt any less, whatever she’s walking straight into. She’s making a choice to trust her father. He knows what he’s doing. He _has_ to. If she can’t pick Ronan, she’ll pick Adam. _One_ of them has to care for her as a parent should. All she can trust is that her father will bring her back to Sargent. And if he doesn’t…

 She’ll find her way back to him. She always does.

“I love you…” Her arms wind around his neck and pull him close. “Even with your stupid hair and your stupid clothes. And the stupid way you have to sing your emotions…”

“Violet…” Sarge starts, but he’s too tearful to express himself any further. He returns her embrace, with interest, chin pressed to the top of her head. Her boisterous curls tickle against his cheek. “This isn’t forever. Your dad just wants to give you a break. That’s what he wanted before… well. Before _everything_. And maybe…” He hates that he has to say it, but it bears mentioning. He knows how burned out they both are by their shared states of separation anxiety. “Maybe this’ll be good for us. Maybe we need time apart. Just for now.”

Neither of them are loathe to admit it, but for now? Yes, their relationship is too heavy a burden for her to carry. She barely understands who she is right now, let alone who she once was in Sargent’s arms. All she knows is what she feels and what she feels is the strongest sort of love she ever thought humanly possible. Violet Lynch doesn’t love anyone. But Sargent is an easy acquiescence to her heart’s song and she gives in _fiercely_.

But she’s still no closer to meeting the girl Sarge fell in love with weeks ago and she suspects they won’t cross paths again unless she takes the road on her own. So she will take the road less traveled and find this long lost girl, and herself along the way.

Sarge leans down, forehead nudged gentle to her brow. “You are _everything_ , Violet Lynch,” he admits, lip bitten and waiting to kiss her, one last time. “I don’t know how in the hell I lucked out enough to be dropped down into the same universe as you, but I’m here and you chose _me_. The most ridiculous, insignificant speck of a human being…”

Violet shakes her head in disbelief, still joined brow to brow. “How can you even say that? Don’t you know you are a swirling universe all on your own?” Her hands slide up to grip his neck. Fingers curl, digging into the skin at his nape to hold his attention. “You’re a star, Sargent Gansey. A god damn fucking _star_. Bigger than _all_ of this.” She flings out an arm to gesture to the room at large. “Bigger than _me_.”

“Don’t sell yourself short there, Legs,” he chokes out, hardly able to stand such a grandiose evaluation of his person. God, and he’s not even half of what she says he is. “You are worthy of so much love, Vi. So much. As much as you could imagine and more. I just… need you to go out there and see it.”

“God, _Stretch_ …” A watery smile crosses her lips and she can’t not kiss him quiet after these admissions, raw, and real, and _theirs_.

Sarge pulls away first, but nuzzles, safe and close, against the dip between her cheek and nose. “Legs and Stretch against the world?” he breathes warm against her skin.

She tugs him in that much closer, flush against her until all they are is a tangle of legs that gave them a nickname a piece. “Legs and Stretch against the world,” she whispers back, lashes fluttering at the close of their conversation.

 _So long, farewell._ _Auf wiedersehen_ _, goodbye._

Violet won’t say goodbye. Not for real. Not this time. Not when that isn’t what this is. This is an interlude, the intermission to their play, and the theatre techs have closed the curtains, if only for a moment, to let their players recuperate before act two.

Sarge’s voice kicks up, almost too soft for her to hear. But she does. Oh, she does. It’s a quiet little thing, snatched from The Beatles. A single line and then, fade out.

_I don’t want to leave her now… You know I believe and how…_

Sargent Gansey takes his final bow and lets her leave with dignity.

Back in the kitchen, Adam packs a last minute bag full of necessities Blue keeps adding to his never ending list. He glances up at his daughter’s approach, stopped in his tracks as she swipes a tear from her cheek with an inconspicuous thumb. Despite her melancholy, she stands tall, tall as always, shoulders back and resolute. Ready for whatever comes for her.

“So,” she addresses him with a clearing of her throat, still coarse from the tears she refuses to entertain in the face of potentially losing Sargent Gansey, dearest love and best friend she’s ever had. “Where are we going?”

Adam gives one final tug to the zip of his rucksack and finally makes his intentions clear.

“Massachusetts.”

He's taking her to the one place that brought him gleaming hope for a bright future full of towering skyscrapers and dreams shot to the moon. Adam Lynch is leaving Henrietta, and Adam Parrish is coming  _home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song reference is "Something" by the Beatles. And a sneaky little nod to The Sound of Music...


	35. Nowhere Road Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something's going on with Sargent...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These next two coming chapters are split into two parts. One is Sarge's point of view, the other will be Vi's. 
> 
> If you're following me on tumblr, you might already know where Sarge is headed. If not, I'm hoping this particular character development isn't super out of left field, as it is something I've been thinking about for a while now... if I've done my job right, it won't come as a huge surprise.

**Sargent**

Day 1

Indie finds Sargent slumped over the kitchen counter, looking for all the world like he’s lost the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him. Amongst all his melodrama in Violet and Adam’s departure, he forgets he’s one half of the optimistic Gansey sibling duo. Optimism is their expertise. He _must_ know Violet’s coming back to him. Somewhere along the line, Violet’s skeptical brooding rubbed off on him. It’s an uncomfortable fit across his broad shoulders, ill-suited to his lanky form. With the light of Sargent’s positivity burnt out, Indie must carry the torch for the pair of them.

“Have you heard anything yet?” she inquires carefully, settling in onto the stool at her brother’s elbow.

Sargent lets out a pathetic, drawn out groan, sliding his phone away from him with a hand laid heavy with the lethargy of hearing no news. “Not from Vi. Adam keeps sending me pictures from Washington though.” The gesture stings, knowing that Violet has no interest in communicating with him; that her father feels he has to overcompensate on her behalf; that there she is, standing tall and smiling across from her father in front of the White House. Violet never smiles in pictures. Nor does she typically allow anyone to produce photographic evidence of her existence. The only person capable of easing a natural smile out of her to catch on film is _Noah_.

Five hours they’ve been gone, and already she’s _happy_. Happier than she’s looked since before the incident. Not even alone with Sargent was she completely at ease, so full, as she was, of questions about and for the girl she once was. She feels the strain of having to perform for him; to play the part of a stranger she’s never met. He knows that. He wishes he could do something to alleviate that strain, that he could convince her that he loves her no matter who she is or who she becomes.

But it’s too late now, and lord knows how long Adam plans on tucking his daughter away for safe-keeping…

Indie thumbs through the pictures Adam sent, finding evidence more and more to the point that this is a _vacation,_ just as Adam had once hinted. Here he is, taking his daughter on a road trip across the East Coast, to get some fresh air, peace of mind, and quality time alone with his only child. If anything, his feat is an admirable one. One Sargent refuses to see while he’s so deeply entrenched in his self-pity for being abandoned by a girl who needs space to understand herself with that much more clarity. “At least it’s something,” she offers, passing her brother’s phone back with a quiet nudge. “And Violet _hates_ her phone anyway. She doesn’t hate _you_.”

“I know,” he sighs, straightening up, only to slump against the back of his stool. His fingers card through his messy nest of hair, making him look all the more like he’s just electrocuted himself rather thoroughly. “I know… I just… I think…” He swallows, faltering. Indie’s never seen her motor-mouthed brother so at a loss for words. “I think we broke up.”

His sister lets out a sharp bark of a laugh. “Okay now I _know_ you’re just being a drama queen. There is no _way_ Violet would dump you.”

The trouble is, he’s played through the conversation over and over again in his head, and he can’t tell who initiated… “She said she wanted a break,” he admits, filling Indie in with one more crucial piece of information she’s missed in all her gallivanting about the town on her own. What she doesn’t know keeps her in blissful ignorance; keeps her from understanding how dire this situation is.

The two Gansey siblings wince in tandem at the implication. “Well, I mean… Maybe she just needs the time it takes for her and Adam to sort out whatever family drama they’re going through to figure out that you two are meant to be together. She’s _coming back_. And when she does, it’ll be right back into your arms. Trust me. That girl is hardly capable of mustering up a deep appreciation for _pizza_ , let alone another human being, yet she is _crazy_ about _you_.” The six years Indie’s spent, head spinning with every moody lovestruck feeling radiating off an utterly oblivious Violet Lynch is enough for her to know that Violet didn’t just fall headfirst into a relationship with Sargent, only to break up with him a month later. There’s dedication there; a desperation to see this through. And yet her father ran, taking her with him the instant danger reared its ugly head, and off she goes, into the abyss, without a single word more. “Excuse me, Richard Campbell Gansey El Quatro, Violet Lynch is madly in love with you and you’re not doing yourself any favours by sitting here, feeling sorry for yourself while she figures out who she is for her benefit and _yours_.”

Indie hardly lets him sputter out a dejected _but_ before she carries on her tirade. “No, look. I watched you mope for three days straight while she was in the hospital. Not this time. I’m getting you out of this funk, Big Brother, if it’s the last thing I do!”

“What are you suggesting?” Sargent blinks back at her, lips parted and hopeless. She clears her throat, right hand reaching out to pat her large, metallic fuchsia makeup case she’d set down beside her upon her entrance. Nimble fingers work over the clasps and the chest pops open with an agreeable creak. Compartments wing out beneath her touch and from the centre, she rummages around before she pulls forth her prize: a bottle of deep navy blue nail polish, sparkling with glitter against the overhead light.

“I’m turning your fingers into galaxies, you pathetic creature. You’re always in a better mood when you’re feeling _pretty_.”

Sargent arches a brow, unaware of whether she’s referring to him in particular, or just a general second person _you_. But he knows he can’t argue when she’s got his favourite polish in hand, ready for application, without a single hint of a tease against him. “Indie… you don’t have to-“

His sister rolls her eyes, already weary of his overly dramatic antics. “Maybe later I’ll actually _let_ you use my eyeliner this time.” She shakes the bottle in her hand as if to entice him further. Let him think this is a deep inconvenience to her. That she doesn’t get a wicked thrill out of dolling her brother up from time to time. Sam flits across her mind and she knows all too well this is all just one more part of her unorthodox norm. Sarge has been begging their parents and Ronan and Adam to paint his nails since the age of three. This is nothing new. It just takes Indie–his sister–someone who already has so much on him that she could blackmail him for whole lot worse if it ever came down to it, to give legitimacy to his glittering aesthetic appreciation.

And for the first time in his life, Sargent seems to realize this too. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t look at him funny, or scoff at his soft, feminine hands, dipped in lacquer and stardust. Not like the rest of the world does. All Indie sees is her obnoxious older brother who steals her clothes far too often, and occasionally misapplies her makeup with the unpracticed skill of a boy who doesn’t know what he’s doing, but would love to learn, if only he could find his voice to _ask_.

Well, this evening, he doesn’t have to ask. Indie’s granting him that. Just this once, while he needs a thorough distraction from all this pining that never gets him anywhere.

_Sargent Gansey, why are you pining so hard for a girl you already have?_

 

Day 2

 

I.

“We’re going out,” Indie announces none-too-gently to her brother as he frowns over a tattered pair of pants laid in his lap, sequins pulled from their seams. A needle threads through the fabric where he has a swatch, ready and waiting, to patch up a hole ripped in one knee.

He glances up from his position in the middle of the couch, throwing down the sewing project as a lost cause. It’s not the act itself that bothers him. He can darn worn out clothes with his eyes closed. It’s just… Someone hurt him over these pants. Threw him down and kicked him around for being different and true to the person he _knows_ he’s meant to be. A handful of Aglionby boys spoke for society when they called him names and doled out punches, making certain he knew his place.

If Sargent’s toned down his wardrobe of choice since then, no one at Monmouth has breathed a word. He’s not about to make a scene by addressing it… He catches the glimmer of his freshly painted nails from yesterday in his peripheral vision and slides his hands, self-conscious, through the cuff of one pant leg. Something akin to panic rises in his throat and clenches like a vice.

“Who’s we?” he manages, setting the trousers aside. His hands curl into fists to keep his nails out of sight, out of mind.

“Me. Sam. You…” his sister confirms with a concise nod. She’s gone for a look she’d save for the garage, and not for a grand afternoon out: a rainbow-striped crop top under denim overalls rolled up several times at the ankle, snapback on hand as she leans against a long, sleek wooden board painted with cherry blossoms and flaming skulls, lined on one side with spinning wheels. “We’re planning on going to the skate park. And _you’re_ coming with.”

Sarge takes a moment to let this digest. He shakes his head as if to cast off the ridiculous notion. “Is that… Violet’s?” he asks instead, pointing to the skateboard casually pressed beneath her elbow.

“Mmmhmm,” Indie verifies. “Found it in the crawl space. She hasn’t used it in _years_.” Unlike Indie, Violet was never overly fond of adding athletics to her punk life. Her love of skateboarding started and ended with her uniquely morbid decision to slather her own personal board with a wickedly illustrated juxtaposition of flora and death. The world just wasn’t ready for the snarling bite of a wild forest girl, clad in tank tops and shades, astride a rolling plank of pretty threats.

Sarge’s mouth ticks upward, fond at the image regardless before he catches himself. “You’re such a little shit, Indigo Jane.” There’s no way she intends on getting him on one of those things. No way. But her lazily casual expression doesn’t change. She doesn’t laugh.

“Oh, you’re coming out with us, _Richard_.” Sargent hisses at the flippant use of his never-used legal first name. Indie rolls her eyes, setting Violet’s skateboard down, and tromping out of the room with strides determined enough to inform him she’s to return, with backup aplenty.

And a moment later, so she does, tossing a bright red helmet at him, followed by a handful of knee, elbow, and wrist guards. “Would this make you feel better, Gravity Boy?”

“Mildly,” he admits, pursing his lips into a stubborn line. “But I’m still not coming with you.”

Indie shakes her head. She knows what she has to do. It’s her very raison d’etre as the baby in the family. She owes it to Sarge to be a pain in the ass. Her tongue clucks against the roof of her mouth as she clambers up onto the couch cushion next to him. “Saaaaaaargeeeent!” she coos, plucking the helmet from his hands and positioning it on his head, rattling him in her insistent grasp. He sits there, unimpressed and unmoving, with the straps dangling down against either side of his face. “Sargent please come with us. _Pleeeease_!”

She wraps her arms around him from the side, her chin digging in sharp against the first dip of his collar bone. Sargent won’t be swayed by the doe-eyed puppy-dog pout his little sister has put on just for him. Not this time. “Sarge Sarge Sarge… I love you, Sarge. You’re my favourite brother in the whole _world, Sarge_. _Come with_ _us_!”

Sargent lets out a put-upon sigh as she shakes him, his head jerking every which way with the motion. “Oh my god, alright! But only to stop you being so _annoying_!”

Indie lets out a little tinkling pixie’s laugh, beaming up at him with her tricksy Cheshire cat smile. “Thank you, Big Brother. I promise it’ll be fun!” Her grip on him somehow intensifies as she leans in to press cheek to cheek in her hug, finally landing a grateful smack against his cheekbone, made all the more sloppy by Sargent wildly extricating himself from the situation. “…for two out of three of us,” she amends, her grin turned wicked once more, and flees before he can get a swipe at her.

 

II.

 

Scraped knees and a healthy collection of bruises Violet would be proud of aside, Sargent must admit, the afternoon’s skateboarding jaunt does not prove disastrous. Sam had been around now and again since they and Indie had started dating, but only so far as they remained behind closed doors while Sargent's been preoccupied with Violet. Without the ordinarily appreciated distraction, Sargent finds himself getting to know his sister’s person of choice better than he ever anticipated. And the person in question makes for a surprisingly delightful companion. For a few dizzying hours of studiously attempting not to fall flat on his ass, Sarge finds in Sam’s both lofty and tranquil presence, he’s able to forget his latest bout of self-loathing and the itch of loneliness creeping beneath his skin. Sam knows a thing or two about standing tall at the face of adversity. Today they stand casual in beaten up black skinnies and ribbed tank, snapback concealing their vibrant hair, but for a tuft they brushed back to leave peaking out in a window of flamingo pink and lime green across their forehead. They look for all the world, like an ordinary person, and not someone who fights tooth and nail to be recognized under their chosen gender identity.

Sam watches Sarge carefully. Listens, intent and persistent when he has something to say, and respects his words with gentle patience. They don’t laugh at him when he pitches forward on his skateboard and grapples for their arm to steady himself. Their eyes flick for a lingering moment toward his nails, sparkling all the more in the newly springtime sun. The glance bounces away within a second, their mouth spread in a grin as they change the subject to ease Sarge’s discomfort at being caught out. He feels plain in his grey jeans and old Blink 182 tour shirt he ransacked from Noah’s ancient wardrobe. Too plain, and hardly himself. His heart reaches for one of Violet’s loose-fitting over-the-shoulder sweaters instead but he regretfully hesitated before racing out the door in the first shirt he grabbed from his own drawer.

Sam puts him at ease, out here in the real world, doing something so ordinarily _teen._ Indie keeps a keen eye on them, pleased that two of the most important people in her life are getting along. Sarge can barely even stand on his board, but Sam shows him the ropes, full of easy-going nods and _no, dude. More like this!_ She can’t help but notice that her usually carefree, vocally enthusiastic brother is oddly self-conscious today. Maybe it’s the lack of his steadfast companion by his side. Maybe it’s the awkwardness of being the third wheel for once. Maybe it’s discomfort with Sam and Indie’s not even remotely heteronormative relationship in general.

Maybe it’s something else…

Whatever it is has him shaken up and Sam’s noticed. They help him breathe easier, bless them, and it’s all they and Indie can do while Sargent grapples with whatever he’s grappling with, whether Vi, or third-wheeling, or confusion over Sam and Indie’s unique gender and sexual identities. All she can do now is put him at ease while his world is so up-ended. Two days in and Indie hopes she’s making some progress…

 

Day 3

 

I.

Sargent doesn’t know what it is: Sam’s quiet, casual confidence in their identity, or simply waking up on the right side of the bed this morning, but he tugs on what he _wants_ to wear for the first time in weeks, criticism be damned. No second thoughts, just a piece or two that sets his heart alight and whispers kind words to him. A valve within him gives a hearty _tha-thump_ and he’s bursting with it. He doesn’t know why he thought to hide these past few days. Sargent Gansey is not a boy to cower in the shadows after a single setback by ignorant strangers who don’t even _know_ him. He’s done himself a terrible disservice, and he intends to right that. Immediately.

He wanders out into the kitchen, a song on his lips, when Indie’s spoon clatters against her cereal bowl, fallen from limp fingertips. She tries to make a swift recovery before he notices her slack jaw upon his grand entrance and she closes her mouth. Not a single further to-do. This is hardly anything new, she tells herself once again. He makes a habit of filching clothes off both girls on a practically daily basis. Indie’s not so certain Sargent even _has_ a wardrobe all of his own. And yet…

“Is that… Violet’s skirt?” she risks the question, wincing at how hypocritically incredulous she sounds. She has no right to say a word against him when Sam… She frowns, chin settling into her hand.

Sargent glances down at himself, his expression a stroke of surprise identical to his sister’s. The high-waisted skirt is admittedly striking on his long figure, two columns of buttons leading down his lanky torso into the pleated flare, falling over too-thin hips. The purple cat paws splashed all over the dark print strikes Indie as funny in a way only Sargent’s ridiculous, whimsical tastes can be. One of Violet’s slouchier cream-coloured sweaters tops the look, tucked in, but loosely draped over every angle. Indie has to admit, for Sargent’s explosive fashion disasters, this is a good look… if it weren’t for the dark skinny jeans thrown on underneath.

Sargent taps one navy blue painted nail against his mouth, languidly reconsidering, but not nearly enough to make him turn tail and hide in their bedroom for the rest of the day. He tests the fabric of Violet’s skirt between his fingers, the material a satisfying tactile experience against his thumb and forefinger.

He glances back up at Indie, sheepish, but blankly uncaring. He shrugs, grateful that Violet prefers her sweaters long, leaving the sleeves the perfect length to ball his hands into fists within the soft cuff. “I like it,” he murmurs, lips pursed as he fiddles with his sleeves. Indie can see from her position at the bar counter that he’s forcing back a grin: a perfect show of just how much this outfit means to him.

Indie suspects he’s making a much grander statement than either of them can even comprehend…

Luckily, Indie’s saved from sputtering through an awkward show of support for her brother and his evolving tastes by Sam’s arrival. She releases a breath of relief while Sarge tenses up a foot or two away for the first time this morning. Sam leans in to kiss her in greeting, then surveys Sargent in swift assessment.

“ _Hey_ …!” they exclaim, clearly delighted by this turn of events. Their gaze flits from Sargent to Indie and back again to gage the situation before they barrel onward. “That’s a _great_ look! You look _good_.” The way they elongate that final word clinches it for Sarge and he can’t help but swell up with pride at the compliment.

He _feels_ good. For the first time in a while, this feels _right_.

Indie pushes away her now-forgotten cereal bowl. “I have an idea,” she announces, hopping down off her stool. “If this-“ she waves a loose hand toward the length of her brother’s body. “-is happening, we’re taking you shopping. No more stealing your girlfriend and sister’s clothes. It’s high time you claim something as your own.”

Sargent practically chokes at this swift turn of events. Sam’s already clapping with glee beside her. “But I _like_ your clothes.”

Indie’s already circling him like a lion closing in on raw meat, considering her options. “Are you thinking makeup? Because we can teach you that too.” He watches, wary, as his little sister’s face drops into something else entirely, something resembling an epiphany. Her hands creep up into a prayer position, cupped against her mouth. “Oh my god- Violet _never_ lets me do this with her. Oh my _god_ this is so exciting! _Sarge_ …!”

Sam merely watches, silent, and contemplative, but quietly approving. They don’t say another word one way or another toward Sargent’s bold move of self-expression this morning, and for that, he’s grateful. Sargent’s not too sure exactly how to label this as it is. He never really has…

 

II.

 

They’re wandering shoulder to shoulder, winding their way between the curving labyrinth of clothes racks as Indie flits about, finding flattering outfits wherever she can when Sam finally speaks up. “Don’t let her bully you into only buying girls’ clothes if that’s not what you want.”

They’ve gone on in comfortable silence for so long, Sargent’s startled by the gentle nudge. “Believe me, as someone who’s questioned their gender enough times as it is, I know a thing or two about being pressured to dress one way or the other. But I want at least someone to let you know you can have both. You can always choose _both_.”

Sargent’s not convinced what he’s doing _is_ questioning his gender. If anything, he dresses how he dresses, and if he so chooses to throw on an article of clothing sculpted for a girl, it’s hardly a deterrent. He looks at Violet some days, admires the way a skirt or summer dress falls across the planes of her body, and he wants to emulate that. Maybe not perfectly so, but as far as art goes, no two pieces can ever be the same. He doesn’t strive to look like the girls. He strives to look like _himself_ , however the wardrobe at his fingertips speaks to him.

Clothes are clothes. They don’t suddenly change the person underneath for better or for worse. It’s a mask, a costume. To put on and take off at will; to tell a story; to create a masterpiece. He wants to be visually pleased and to visually please others. To express, to experiment, to _play_.

A skirt is no more feminine than a pair of baggy jeans are masculine. His clothes are not his gender. He remembers the stinging words left by the Aglionby boys: a suggestion that his wardrobe makes him less of a man. But he considers what it means to be a man and comes up empty. He can’t grasp the notion of being boyish any more than he can grasp the notion of being girly. What does any of it mean when it’s nothing but an illusion, pulled together by rules and regulations written up to segregate and _bind_?

Sargent Gansey wants to be _unbound_. He wants to be free to express himself as his whims take him. Most importantly, he finds he can’t be chained by an identity that doesn’t _exist_.

Make the rules. Bend them. Break them. Set them aflame, and leave them to burn to cinders. Sargent’s rising from the god damned ashes, and he’s playing the game his way.

 

Day 4

Sargent’s boost of self-confidence at his latest revelations is short lived. Stripped bare of all his layers, of his pretty skirts, sparse, billowy crop tops, and jean jackets littered with patches likely from Noah’s era, he feels lost, a boat cast off its mooring, set utterly adrift. Who is he without the clothes? _What_ is he?

He stands before the full-length mirror hanging in the bedroom, with nothing but a pair of boxers, heavily laden with comic book exclamatives ( _POW! BIFF! WHAP!_ ) keeping him grounded. Would he feel safer in his own skin, practically naked as he is, with Vi there beside him? To kiss away his insecurities, to worship all this unmarked flesh of his? To remind him that he’s beautiful and loved inside and out no matter who he needs himself to be? She always _was_ more appreciative of the visual nuances of the human body. He looks upon his own and all he sees is…

Disconnect.

He feels bigger than his human bones. Like whatever he is is larger than mortal containments. Before she left, Violet called him a star. Bigger than her, bigger than _all_ of this. Maybe that’s what he is: _celestial_.

His body is neither here nor there. He neither likes nor dislikes this boyish form. His long limbs and lanky torso… His unkempt hair and big hands and feet… And between his legs…

Here, his blood runs cold, because this. This is where all thought processes grind to a screeching halt. Something ugly flips in his stomach and he feels sick with it. It’s the same vertigo he feels every time Violet’s pushed him a little too forcefully toward sex. He’s just as terrified of her hidden pieces as he is of his own. He can’t bring her to mind in such a way without that twist of his gut.

Does he match, soul to body like any normal human would? Does his soul call out and clamour _boy_! to the parallel strains of his body screaming _male_!? He finds he has no answer, left at odds, mind, body, heart, and soul, all tugging in different directions.

_Do you like this body, Sargent Gansey? Are you happy in this body? Would you change a single thing?_

He considers his flat chest and broad shoulders. All the things that make him conventionally male. And finds he has no fault with it. He has no burning desire to try breasts on for size, nor could he imagine a life without… well. His skin crawls with the alternative… That’s just about as close to confirmation as he’s going to get today. If he honestly had to choose a body with all its sexual trappings, he’d take this one every time.

_I am male, but I am no boy._

He releases a breath, relief rushing through him at this thought. He tests it out on his lips. “I am male, but I am no boy.” Rocking back on his heels, he repeats himself, louder and more confident each time. Until it feels right, until he feels whole.

 

Day 5

“Hey, Sarge…” Indie addresses him from the kitchen, where she can just see him, sprawled out on the couch with a comic or two. He sets the pages down in his lap, returning her gaze. “I have something for you.”

She’s nervous, as if concerned about overstepping her boundaries. Indie’s been great the past few days, taking these changes in her brother’s countenance with steady grace. As far as Sarge is concerned, she’s already done too much. But he follows her back down the hall toward their bedroom nonetheless.

They halt just outside the door, which is, in fact, sporting something new across the wood at eye-level.

A chalk board.

Sargent frowns, looking to his sister for confirmation. That wasn’t there this morning…

She clears her throat. “It’s to write down your pronouns,” she explains, cheeks flaming up. “You know, Sam uses they/them. And I just thought… if you wanted to, I wanted you to have the option to tell us without having to… ahh… _tell_ us.”

Sargent ponders his sister’s words, giving himself a mental scan for precisely who he feels like today. And really, he realizes he doesn’t have to second guess himself. Not today. And while his gender identity is so nebulous, tomorrow may be a different day. As will the day after. But today, he’s certain. He reaches out for a piece of blue chalk and scratches two words down in large, round lettering upon the board.

 _he/him_.

Indie breathes a sigh of relief, steeling herself at the last second. “You can go by they/them if you want though,” she amends, realizing her potentially horrendous gaff. “All you have to do is say.”

A rush of affection whooshes through him for his baby sister. His mouth splits into an uncontrollable grin. “I know. I’ll write it down when I do. Feel that way, that is. Because I think… I think, some days, I will.”

“Yeah?” Indie asks, awestruck as her brother pulls her tight against him, one hand ruffling her hair, overflowing with gratitude.

“Yeah.”

 

Day 6

So caught up is Sargent in his revelations, Violet’s fallen away from his peripheral memory. She’s still there, of course, waiting to pick back up where they left off, but just… quieter. Not as urgent a siren’s call as she was nearly a week before. Sargent feels steadier, like he can be alone with himself without begging and counting the minutes to Vi’s return.

 Which is why the buzz of his phone throws him off guard completely. He lets out a yelp when the contraption springs to life in the pocket of his jeans, making him spring off the bed where he’s been lounging with his math homework across his lap.

Violet’s pet name followed by a flower and every coloured heart emoji in Sargent’s arsenal springs forth across his screen, beseeching him over video chat. He scrambles to answer before she blips off the face of the Earth once more, never to be heard from again.

“H-hello? Hey! Hi! _Violet_!” Vi’s face pops into view in a crackle of pixels before she settles, clear as day upon his screen. She reclines on her right side, propped up against pillows granted by the cosy B &B Adam’s found for them all the way in Salem. Ten hours away and yet it feels further…

A moment passes before Violet replies, as if faced with a delay on the other side. “Stretch,” she sighs her relief. Exhaustion clings to every bit of her. Her voice, her dipping chin, the raccoon shadows blotting each eye…

“Hey, Legs! How’s the trip?” Sargent’s careful with his phrasing, morphing this adventure she’s on into something different than what he perceives. Something okay. Something she’ll come home from.

Violet purses her lips, shifting against the pillows of her double bed. “Hmm fine! Nothing really, just Dad whisking me around the country, making me see the sights…” Adam and Violet could have made it to Massachusetts within a day with a single stop for rest and lunch along the way. But Adam clearly had other ideas, sprawling their road trip out while they put one more pin in their map of the United States. Washington D.C. New York City. Boston. Salem. Harvard. He kept them on the move, and had been for the past six days. The only way Sargent even knew where Violet was on any given day corresponded with the pictures Adam sent, like a promise to bring her home. “I wish he’d slow down though. He keeps making all these weird calls…”

 There’s something different about the way she talks. Guarded, like she’s keeping something close to her chest. He watches her curl in on herself, barely a duck of her head from his close-up angle. “Vi…” he tries, careful as he goes. “Are you okay?”

Fortunately enough, something in her snaps under the mysterious strain she’s experienced the past six days and she shakes her head, vehement, and drowsy. “Sarge… I’m so tired. So so tired. I just want to sleep. All the time.” One hand reaches up to surreptitiously swipe away tears. “I’m scared. I just… I don’t feel like myself.”

Sargent frowns. “Well then, get some rest. Your dad can’t completely run you into the ground on this trip. It’s supposed to be relaxing, isn’t it?” Sarge isn’t so sure either way, but for Violet, he errs on the side of cautious optimism.

Violet shakes her head again, lethargic. “That’s not it. I just… I feel something inside me stretching too thin. Like the further away I am from Henrietta, the more drained I become…”

“W- _what_?” Sargent casts his math book aside, utterly forgotten. If Vi’s five seconds to crashing, he’s wide awake. “H-have you told your dad?”

She shakes her head once more. “It doesn’t matter. He’ll bring me home in a day or two anyway, once he gets this out of his system. You’re right. I just need to sleep it off.”

But Violet clearly doesn’t need to sleep it off. Something’s going on with her. Whatever ties she has to Henrietta aren’t all in her head. That’s not coincidence. It _can’t_ be.

Her hand reaches up again, this time to wipe her nose on her sleeve. But when she pulls her arm away, it’s not tears, nor snot smearing matching stains across her sleeve and upper lip.

In its place is blood.

The red liquid trickles from one nostril in tendrils. She doesn’t bother to wipe the stream of blood away, instead her eyes flutter shut and she…

lets

herself

go.

Her head pitches forward first, loose against her neck. Then her fingers loosen their hold upon her phone and Sarge finds his view slanting, slanting, falling, not far, but fast, against crisp bedspread, ceiling running in impossible angles in his immediate line of sight.

“Violet?” he calls out to her, panic stricken. “ _Violet_?”

_Violet…_


	36. Nowhere Road Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, this isn't what Adam had in mind when he wanted to take Violet on a roadtrip. AKA: Violet sleeps through everything.

Chapter 36

 

**Violet**

Day 1

I.

Violet hopes her father knows what he’s doing. He’s nervous now that they’re on the road; has been since he pulled out of the driveway of Monmouth. They don’t spare a stop to see Ronan on their way out of the city. Vi almost wishes Adam would grant her just that. But she knows now how volatile their relationship has become. She’s seen it with her own eyes and its enough to almost wish she could forget all over again. She doesn’t know if she wants to talk to Adam right now. He’s going to sure as hell try.

 Her head presses against the passenger seat window, her forehead rumbling against the cool glass as the car moves beneath her stationary body. Scenery passes by in a blur of bushes, trees, and traffic lights. The occasional farm house passes her vision and her heart tightens for Ronan and the many cherished moments with him as a child. The way he chased her, whizzing around the living room, her arms outstretched like airplane’s wings, until he finally caught her and whirled her small giggling form around in his firm grasp. The way he had tea parties with her and Sargent and Indie, full of lace and teddy bears and his pinky finger poised just so to receive tiny teacups etched with intricate china patterns. The way he laced himself up in full ballet flats, skirts and bodice: the only way to entice her to dance lessons on stuffy summer afternoons. He was a steadfast companion, once upon a time.

Now, Violet feels _robbed_.

Two hours in and three aborted conversations later, Violet suppresses a sigh. Barely. “What _is_ this?” she blurts out, unable to keep it in anymore. Indulging her father’s need for quality time with her is one thing. But not the ulterior motives behind it. She knows Adam’s got something else up his sleeve. “What are you running from, Daddy?”

“What am I…?” Adam glances over at her briefly from over the steering wheel. “Violet. I’m giving our family some space. Time to think. Ronan needs to be alone. _We_ need to be alone.”

Violet lets out an indignant snort, arms crossing over her chest. “Bullshit. You’re _running_. You can’t get Ronan to sign your stupid divorce papers and you’re worried about him getting to me, so you’re running because it’s the only thing left for you to do.”

She’s not wrong…

“ _Violet_ ,” he warns. He needs her to understand that he’s in the right. He _needs_ to do this. She may not remember the horrors Ronan’s inflicted upon this family, but it’s not enough to leave her there, waiting to be snatched back into his clutches. Because he _will_ try again. If Adam doesn’t relent with custody negotiations, this could get ugly and he’s not prepared to face the consequences of another confrontation. The best he can do is extricate his daughter from an ugly situation threatening to get uglier.

“You’re abandoning him,” she accuses, blasé as anything, one hand flung out in a lazy gesture over her shoulder. “When he’s hurting the most, you just up and leave. The minute it starts getting hard, you walk away.”

Adam inhales deep through his nose, chest heaving with the implications. No child of divorce will ever follow quietly. His daughter’s no exception. And Violet’s not stupid either. She’s also not one to make sound judgment calls after everything she’s been through and the accusation stings. “You’re abandoning an alcoholic, Dad. He’s _sick_.”

“He’s an abuser!” Adam bites back, heart pounding, tight with regret at having yelled at his daughter. He can’t afford to fly off the handle with her. Not now… Not when he’s so close. He owes it to her to give her at least _one_ level-headed parent. “He’s an _abuser_ , Violet. And we can’t stay where he’ll find us anymore.”

Violet huffs, arms back to crossed position as she slumps back in her seat. Sullen. A dead weight settles on Adam’s chest at the realization of just what he’s signed himself up for in stealing his moody teenage daughter away for god knows how long. This is going to be a _long_ trip.

 

II.

 They’re in Washington D.C. by the time they manage a civil conversation again. They stop in a diner for lunch, Violet making no secret of her agitation, munching her fries from across the booth. He can’t remember a moment where that displeased dip in her brow wasn’t there. There’s only one thing he knows will lift her spirits.

“So,” he starts, tripping toward inevitable disaster, if only he could see the coming train wreck. “You and Sargent, hey?”

Violet lets out an indignant tut, tossing a French fry back down onto her plate. “We’re taking a break,” she mutters, not without a sharp, “no thanks to you,” scowled down into her Monte Cristo.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Adam tries diplomatically, careful in his tread. “But he makes you happy?”

“Usually.” She’s not interested in elaborating, not when their parting words are still vivid on her mind. Violet’s done what she does best and pushed the best thing that’s ever happened to her away. How can she face that? How can she admit she and her crippling distance was the deciding factor in convincing him to back off? She regrets it. Of course she does. She should’ve convinced her father to bring him with them. She should’ve fought harder for Sargent. “You made me walk away from _him_ too.”

 _She’s just a girl_ , Adam has to remind himself when her smart mouth sets his teeth on edge. _Just a lost, lonely teenage girl looking to lay the blame anywhere she can._ He wonders if Blue and Gansey have ever had to deal with this sort of snark from their mild-mannered teens. Part of him wishes Violet could be easy like Sargent or Indie… But Violet Lynch has always been a bundle of nerves since day one.

 “Sargent’s not going anywhere, love,” he sighs, his Henrietta accent slipping through the cracks of his weary words around a single fry popped into his mouth. “You can still talk to him whenever you want.”

Violet lets out a non-committal hum, preoccupying herself with her cherry Coke. Her phone sits cold and dormant in her pocket. Not a word from Sarge, but a number of cheery, trite texts from Indie asking how she is and where they are alongside a number of cat gifs and unflattering, self-deprecating snap-chat pictures as if she can feel Violet could use some cheering up from five _hours_ away. Knowing her and her Cupid ways, she probably can… She thinks about initiating contact with Sargent after their talk, but she doesn’t want to be the first to break. He was the one who suggested a break. If he wants to text her, he can… “He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

Somehow, Adam has a hard time believing that. Never has there been a moment in Sargent Gansey’s life where he’s passed up a perfectly good opportunity to talk to Violet, his dearest friend. “Oh, I’m sure he does. He just doesn’t want to push it when he wants to give you space.”

Adam doesn’t know if it’s good, in the end, that Sargent’s backing off. On the one hand, he and Violet are making a new start. On the other, in many ways, Sargent is all Violet has; he’s all Violet _knows_. Adam’s already asking too much of her by gently nudging her into giving Ronan up. He can’t ask her to give up Sargent. Not when he _means_ something to her; to this _family_.

And so he whips out his phone and sets it to camera mode, coaxing his daughter into a smile that doesn’t come in her current nebulous mood. It’s been a while since he’s seen anything but a scowl on his daughter’s pretty face. When was the last time she smiled for someone other than Sargent? What does it take to coax her guard down? He sighs. “What is it that Sarge always says? Keep it gay?” he inquires, and by the horrified look on his daughter’s face, he knows his embarrassing dad points just went up exponentially. But he’s trying. “From that musical? What is it… The Directors?”

“The _Producers_ , Dad,” Violet corrects him with her usual sharp retort. She sees what he’s doing. Logically, she remains unimpressed. But emotionally, the twitch of her lips gives her away before she can even rein it in as her heart wraps around the first time they ever watched the film adaptation together and Sarge laughed until he cried.  

Adam captures that wistful expression from behind his phone, satisfied with himself for small miracles. Baby steps. They’ll get there. He lowers his phone a fraction, an idea come to mind. “Hey, we’ll be stopping through New York on our way to Salem. What do you think about seeing a play?”

Violet’s heart twists at the thought of seeing a musical without Sargent to experience it with her. What is Broadway without that awestruck look of wonder on her boy’s face? Or his jaunty skip, kicking up his heels in glee? This is Sargent’s territory. Not hers. She has no business… Not without him.

Adam seems to decipher this from the furrow beginning to erode her brow once more. “We could see something really cool. Something Sarge wouldn’t suggest…” Violet can’t imagine a single play Sargent _wouldn’t_ suggest, nor would he care exactly _what_ they saw, so long as they saw it. “Just think about it.”

 

Day 2

 It starts as a drowsy itch, crawling through the furthest reaches of her mind; through the deepest recesses of her heart; unfurling like oil surfacing on water in her soul. It’s so minuscule, Violet passes it off for road trip grogginess that comes with being cramped in the confines of a car in the four and a half hours to New York. Her father’s voice fades out with the riff-raff of traffic sounds around them, boxing her in within her metal death trap.

A lot has happened in the past few days, it’s no wonder she’s tired. It’s not as if Violet’s never been to Washington before. She’s seen the sights with the extended Gansey family. The White House, Washington Monument, and Smithsonian are nothing new to her. Yet Adam takes it upon himself to whirl her through the old stomping grounds once more, as if to recreate a childhood she’s abruptly left. It’s exhausting, taking in famous landmarks and history and politics and museums.

And so, she sleeps. And sleeps and sleeps, all the way to New York City, where Adam finally stops the car a block around the corner from their hotel when parking is too tight. The sudden jerk of stillness pulls her out of her slumber. Out the passenger-side window, a red brick apartment block looms over her, four storeys tall. And on the front stoop stands a girl, her own age, holding a cardboard box in her grip, her naturally fair hair peeking out of an old, ginger dye job, now washed out with time into a ruddy ombre at the tips falling across her shoulders and down her back. Her gaze catches on the newcomers as a dark-skinned man wanders out of the building entrance with purpose, alleviating her of her burden while she’s caught unawares. An odd kinship shoots through Violet, and for a wicked moment in her sleepy state of mind, she thinks perhaps those bluer than blue eyes she stares into are her own.

But they’re not and this is a very different girl.

Adam opens the passenger’s side door for her when she doesn’t expel herself from the car immediately upon their arrival. His hand reaches  out to fall upon her shoulder. “You okay?” he inquires with genuine concern knitting his brows and squeezing her arm with tense fingers.

She shakes herself out of it. In the passing seconds, the girl has descended the small handful of steps and retreated toward the UHaul parked in front of Adam’s Mercedes Benz. The crate-like trunk gapes wide open, displaying stacks of boxes and miscellaneous furniture pieces. Violet watches, gaze hooded as the girl hefts a new box in her grip and wanders back toward the apartment building.

“Hey,” she greets her, rattling Violet right out of her comfort zone at being detected in this strange new city. She shakes her long hair out of her face and smiles, warm like caramel sauce swirled over Violet’s cold soft serve ice cream. “D’you live here?” It’s not an accusatory question, but a genuine, curious, open one. One full of hope at having finally met the neighbours.

Vi splutters for a response. “Ah… no. No, we’re just…” Her hands flail unhelpfully around her, as if she can better articulate herself through her body language. “Ah- passing through.” She attempts a weak smile and hopes it’s not worthy of a serial killer’s mouth.

Either she passes with flying colours, or this girl is comfortably at home with serial killers and their sharp-edged smiles. “Oh,” she says, a lick of disappointment dancing on her breath. “My godparents are just moving in. My stepmom and I came down to help them settle in. Is this your first time in New York?”

Violet blinks, wondering belatedly if her father did something dubious to her in her sleep to make her _agreeable_ to complete strangers. She turns her head to surreptitiously sniff at her shoulder. No, she hasn’t been spritzed with any such enticing scent. How does she get out of this situation? Where has her father gone? She casts her gaze about for rescue, but the only men in her arsenal are a pair of bald men, one light, one dark, both conferring over the moving van, puzzling over how to manoeuver the couch in through the front door. “Um… no. I’ve never been this far east before.” She tucks a curl behind her ear.

The girl lights up. “Really? Me neither!” she exclaims, flicking a glance over her shoulder to follow Violet’s gaze. “We’re from California. So far out of the woods…” Her pleasantly shaped lips tug into a grin that makes Violet’s heart squeeze with thoughts of Indie and the many unanswered messages left on her phone. She’s been a horrid friend to a girl who’s only ever been lovely to her, always.

“I’m uh… Virginia. Henrietta. We’re from Henrietta, Virginia.” Is this what talking to strangers is like? Violet’s never experienced anything quite so painful. And yet… there’s something about this girl she wants to make time for.

“Is _that_ where you get that accent?” She takes a step closer, as if further enticed now that she knows that flavor of America in Violet’s voice. Violet tries not to think about the grand elongation of this girl’s words that differentiates her from her unlikely new companion. A Hollywood, Beverley Hills, surf chick accent if ever she heard one. And here Violet is with her grating Southern drawl. When the girl realizes no response is forthcoming to her rhetorical question, she moves on with an awkward laugh. “Oh… god. Sorry. I’m Marnie.”

Marnie, shiny, West Coast, valley girl Marnie. Violet releases a breath, suddenly small and self-conscious in comparison of her dusty curls and Southern grit. The introduction teases her name out of her, reluctant, but true as it peels unbidden from her lips. “Violet,” she mumbles, practically under her breath. She hates human beings. Especially new ones who look at her like _that,_ like she could be a friend for _life_.

Marnie looks at her funny, like she detects something _different_ about her. Like she’s a wolf smelling blood in the air, and it’s all over her. She takes a step closer, now right in the midst of Violet’s personal space. The box in her hands shifts as she jostles it more comfortably in her grip with a jerk of her knee against the bottom as she takes Violet in, piece by piece, a frown burrowing into her brow. “You’re not related to any Marsettes, are you?” she inquires, completely out of the blue.

Violet shakes her head, rag doll loose with dumbfounded surprise.

“A Venimores, then?”

She shakes her head once more, _flop flop flop_. “No, I’m one hundred percent Lynch, actually.” And with her extraordinary creation story, it’s most certainly not a lie.

Marnie regards her carefully, blue-eyed gaze steady. “But there’s magic in you,” she murmurs, mouth dropped open in this turn of events. Violet flinches. _Magic_ … “You’re _doused_ in it. _No one_ outside my family has that kind of magic.”

Violet takes a step back, suddenly stifled by the fierce examination. Marnie remains where she stands, but leans down to free her hands of their restraints on the curb-side. She takes another step toward Violet, hand pressing unwanted to her forearm. Her eyes glide shut in concentration as she takes her in, practically _breathing_ in everything that is Violet Lynch. Her brow pinches with discord. “ _What_ is all that buzzing? Do you hear that all the time? The Latin?”

Cabeswater. This girl, this unlikely girl hears Cabeswater’s call in her. Violet’s learned to ignore it, letting the words fall away to a dull roar, until it’s naught but a gentle whisper, like the breaking of waves along the shore, calming right down to her core. _Shhh shhh shhh_ … She tunes into it now and finds she’s been so attached to Cabeswater’s whispers after all this time, that she can no longer tell whether it's quieted over time, or if she’s tuned it out that effectively…

“Um… yeah,” she forces out, winding a curl round and round her finger. “I’m ah… a dream. Powered by a magical forest.” It sounds ridiculous, and impossible, she knows. And maybe this girl will take her for surface value and think she’s being sarcastic. But that smile curls outward across her mouth, less receiving of a snarky joke, and more accepting commiserations.

“Oh, yeah…” She nods away as if she meets magical dream girls brought up by fucking trees on a daily basis. “Test tube baby, powered by my family’s ancestral mansion.” Marnie points to herself proudly, clearly pleased she’s found a kindred spirit in a fellow magic girl. “It’s not often I can detect _that_ much magic in another human being, let alone a perfect _stranger_ ,” she considers, her expression ticked back to seriousness. “Be careful, Violet Lynch. Your power supply dwindles…”

Violet blinks, too flabbergasted to realize Marnie’s pinched a particularly boisterous curl between her fingers. She leaves her to glide her way down to the end of the strand, without a single slap on the wrist for invading her space. “I’m sorry. You fucking _what_?” She forgets her propriety in front of her new friend, her blood running cold at the ominous implication. How much can this girl possibly know, simply by feeling up her _aura_ or whatever the fuck she’s doing? Can she _see_ that she’s in crisis, every minute her father is that much more reckless with his body? Does she _know_ how the pair of them are _bound_ like no father and daughter ever was?

Marnie passes her a small, sad smile, leaning down to retrieve her box. “Don’t let the ties that bind you unravel while you’re on foreign ground. Remember your _home_.”

Violet barely has time to bark out demands for more concrete answers when she turns, disappearing back into the red brick apartment building, at the heels of her two godfathers.

A hand claps to her shoulder, making her jump nearly right out of her skin. “So, what do you say we settle in, do lunch, and check out the matinees?” Adam squeezes, as if he never let her go, so close and so familiar, Violet has to wonder whether she just hallucinated that whole exchange.

 

Day 3

She wakes late on the third day of their excursion, following a raucous viewing of American Idiot–a performance which at once makes her miss both Sarge and Ronan simultaneously. It’s well into the afternoon by the time Sleeping Beauty rises from her slumber, still testy from her grogginess, as if she hadn’t slept at all. They’ve lost a full day’s worth of sight seeing already, but Adam’s willing to make concessions when they have so much more ahead of them alongside that open road.

A headache lingers, pressing in on her skull like the walls of a haunted hotel, closing in. All she hears is the _whoosh whoosh whoosh_ against her eardrums in time to the pulsating throb in her head as she brushes her teeth, hands pressed up, knuckle white, against the bathroom sink to keep her upright. She’s already slipping back out again, vision blurring with slumber willing to enfold her in its fond embrace, and drag her back into her bed for a couple more hours…

Something drips against the basin of the sink with a single, final _plink_ and it isn’t until Violet shakes herself more awake that she realizes it’s blood, not toothpaste foam, nor spit. She stops in her lethargic brushing, setting her toothbrush aside and plies her nose with a frantic dab of tissue. She doesn’t remember the last time she’s had a nosebleed, if at all.

She’s grateful for the respite when Adam bundles her up in blankets and throws her back into the car for another four hour drive, finally on the way to Massachusetts. She swats him away when he offers her the open passenger’s side door, and instead, prefers the expanse of the empty backseat, all hers for the taking. Her legs stretch out on the seat as she reclines against pillows filched from one of the bedrooms back at Monmouth Manufacturing.

A cold chill sets into her bones and her shivers knock her teeth together, despite the agreeable early-spring weather and the patchwork quilt the ladies of 300 Fox Way made for her as a child, keeping her well wrapped and tucked away on a cozy March late-afternoon drive. She curls in on herself, feeling something malicious sink in, like a cold, or the flu, or true grief in the death of a loved one; the death of _herself_.

 

Day 4

They’re at a Red Sox game in Boston when Violet begins to feel something within her wearing thin. She is made up of ropes, tied to a raft, tied to a sail, tied to a cliff-face, and her edges begin to fray, as if someone’s taken to her twines with a blunt knife, and they’ve finally hacked through bit by bit. She can feel herself slipping, teetering precariously over the edge with no firm foothold, nor a helping hand to fall back on when she makes that fatal drop, pitched into the sea.

Violet’s ordinarily a strong sports fan, a girl ready with spitfire screams of derision at unfair fouls and uglier plays. This is her perfect outlet for all that _rage_ that floats within her with nowhere to go. In all honesty, she’s more at home in a football stadium, where the players are more hands-on and aggressive in their confrontations. But today, she can’t even bring herself to argue the merits over one sport or the other, when she can hardly recognize where she is, or what’s set out right in front of her.

Everything is a haze, offered to her against a milky film, as if she’s losing her sight as well as her god damn mind. The drumbeat in her head wars on, rattling its ever-present reminder that she’s a ticking time bomb set to explode, _rat-a-tat-tat_.

She checks out not even a quarter of the way through the game. Adam should’ve listened to her when she begged him to let her wait in the car the rest of the game. But he wouldn’t hear of it. Instead, she crashes, right up against his shoulder, stone cold blotto. If she’s not well, she hasn’t spoken a word of it to him. Not that much needs to be said. Her wan complexion speaks volumes to her waning health. He’s suspected perhaps in inattentiveness and exhaustion is mere homesickness, but with this near-narcolepsy, she has him worried. And he knows now, they can’t stay.

They’ll figure this out.

 

Day 5

I.

Violet doesn’t know how long she’s slept when she wakes to the sound of her father’s voice over the phone. She doesn’t know what she’s missed between Boston and… whatever’s happened since, but the bed and breakfast leads her to an unfamiliar room she doesn’t remember entering in the first place.

Adam’s pacing in the room somewhere above her, cell phone pressed to his ear as he talks rapidly to someone in both tone and jargon that sounds suspiciously _lawyery_. “Look, yes. We can be on site within the week. I want to see the house as soon as possible. I’ve scheduled a meeting in the afternoon that day. Everything should be set up then. I just want to get my daughter settled into something solid again while her routine is so out of whack. Yes, thank you.”

Violet finds untangling this phone conversation is too much to bear on her still pounding head. Sleep, when handed to her, seems the simpler option.

And so, she takes it while her father schedules a job interview and a house viewing back to back, Violet none the wiser.

 

II.

When she next wakes up, it’s to darkness. Adam’s left her alone to her blissful slumber all day, leaving her to rest and regain her strength. But strength is far from what she’s gained, and instead, she feels weighed down, as if she’s on a different planet entirely, one where gravity plays its weighty tricks on her and her every bone in her body remains too heavy to bear lifting.

Swathed in blankets, she dares lift an arm to reach for her phone, sitting dormant on her bedside table. She’s sick, and tired, and weak, and can barely think straight… Her heart thuds an erratic pulse, unsure of whether to give in to lethargy or patter onward, rabbit’s pace while the brass band plays on in her head to the beat of unwanted, perpetual percussion.

She gives up the ghost halfway to retrieving her phone, the slightest movement enough to make the cacophony in her head erupt to a deafening crescendo. She wraps her pillow around her ears and wails into the bed sheets, piteous screams muffled by the downy quilt. The patchwork dampens with salty tears, only making matters worse for her throbbing head.

 _Please, daddy,_ she begs, unheard through her incoherent screams in this empty room. _Take me home. Please, god, take me_ home _._

Because she knows. She knows whatever this is, is tied to Henrietta. There’s no other explanation. This isn’t simple homesickness, or separation anxiety from missing Sargent. Nor is it a deep depression she’s lately used to. This is something _else_. Something Ronan-shaped. Something only _Ronan_ can fix.

When she reaches for her phone a second time, it holds steady in her grasp. She can just barely make out his name in her list of contacts upon her screen, blurry from the migraine exhaustion. “Daddy?” she croons, voice shaky when he cuts in gruff on the other line.

“Violet?” Ronan’s own voice rings incredulous, clouded by overwhelming relief. “Violet, where the fuck _are_ you?”

Violet sniffs back her tears and tells him.

 

Day 6

 

I.

Ten hours from Henrietta to Salem, and Ronan only makes it as far as Washington. In the near week since his wayward husband snatched his daughter away from him, he hasn’t heard a word. Not a single word about either of their whereabouts. In fact, he hadn’t a single notion that Adam had fled the state with Violet in tow until he’d paid Monmouth a visit, with secret hopes of catching at least a _glimpse_ of his daughter and perhaps reminding Adam of the ultimatum he set when last they spoke. If Adam wants to leave him, fine. Ronan’s done fighting. But he’ll never be done fighting for _Violet_. Not when he fucking brought her to life, sprung from his own god damn _dreams_. If anything, Ronan has more right to Violet than Adam ever did, legal mumbo jumbo aside. Adam’s going to do everything he can to keep her from him. He knows it.

Showing up at Monmouth’s front door only to be barricaded by both Blue _and_ Gansey, arms crossed and concerned with a careful mention of Adam and Violet going out of town for a small father-daughter vacation, only confirms it for him. Only… they won’t tell him where they’ve gone. They talk like they don’t know; as if Adam’s not sending regular updates on the road.

Maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s sworn himself to secrecy to keep anyone from blabbing to aggressively unstable, violent alcoholic Ronan. He _knows_ what he is. He knows what he’s _done_. He hurt her once. He vows never to do it again.

Except… she’s out there in the world, out there alone, but for a father utterly rattled by trauma, and hardly thinking straight in his latest plight. Ronan’s taught her many valuable things, but being out there? On her own for the first time without backup in the form of Sargent Gansey and Indie Sargent? It hardly bears imagining.

So he drinks to take away the pain of not knowing what she’s going through and where. He drinks to forget about Adam Parrish and everything he represents. He drinks for their broken family, fractured beyond repair. For the divorce papers, copied and sitting on the kitchen table at the Barns, waiting for fresh ink to grace its pages and send it on its way. But he can’t. He simply _can’t_.

Five days later and her voice is music to his ears when she calls. Frantic, sad, and exhausted, but still, a melancholic strain, catching the end of Swan Lake. She  catches him in a rare moment of sobriety. He’s stone cold sober and knows exactly what he needs to do the instant she gives him a hint of where to be found.

He must go to her.

He may not be drunk, but both Violet and the road calls to him from behind the dashboard of his BMW. His fingers flex comfortably around the steering wheel and he’s prepared to press the accelerator straight through the floor.

Whatever it takes. He’ll do it. Whatever it takes.

For two hours, a single mantra rolls through his head. _Violet Violet Violet Violet Violet_. His daughter’s name fills him up, sets him in a determined daze. The speed of the vehicle beneath him and the fire blazing in his heart for his daughter keeps him on course. He’s just going to go and go and go until he finds his daughter or runs out of road. He doesn’t care which.

Ronan’s steady behind the wheel. He always has been. Even when flying right over the speed limit by ridiculous increments, he’s still sharp as a tack.

But that doesn’t account for everyone else.

Late in the evening as it is, Ronan’s not the only hardcore drinker unleashed upon the road. Nor is the BMW a worthy adversary to colossal rigs, cement trucks, and so on and so forth… There are monsters on the road tonight and Ronan is the least of the worries on the streets.

He’s forgotten Washington is not as forgiving as Henrietta in terms of quiet streets best catered to speeding down highways. But he recalls too late when a light turns and his foot slams the break a touch too late and he’s…

Goingtoofasttostop.

II.

When Gansey gets the call, it’s from Declan, stiffly pulled together, but clearly shaken with bad news nonetheless. The phone slides from his hand as he sees it, clear in his mind’s eye, as if he were there, the head-on collision and the impact that set the BMW aflame. He chokes on the image, heart too heavy to express. He can’t say a word more to Declan Lynch. But there is a Lynch or two who deserves to know.

Adam’s been dealing with calls all day. He only just got off the phone with Sargent, frantic with hysterics over Vi, demanding Adam check on her and make sure she’s _alive._ But as she has been for the past three days, she’s fast asleep. Nothing out of the ordinary, except her boyfriend, ten hours away, is hysterical with worry. And that has to count for something.

He gently shakes her. Nothing. He tries all his tricks to wake her up. Everything. Nothing. He checks her pulse, presses a hand down under her nose to check she’s breathing… (She is, but ticking at a snail’s pace.) And here, he finally has to admit something is terribly wrong with his daughter. He clambers over the bed to roll her onto her back. Her mouth hangs open slightly, slack-jawed as she sleeps on, unperturbed by being jostled. “Violet,” he tries, his studied calm fooling no one while terror sets in. “ _Violet_ … Christ…”

He’s halfway to calling Ronan to spit insults, place blame, and demand he find a way to _fix_ this immediately when Gansey beats him to the punch. His mouth forms the words _Violet’s asleep_ before Gansey interjects with more panic Adam’s ever heard in stoic, carefully controlled Richard Campbell Gansey III’s voice. Nothing quite makes sense until Gansey takes a deep breath and then…

“Adam. _I am so sorry_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably don't even have to defend myself about this, but I'mma do it anyway just in case. The OCs making a cameo appearance in this chapter are from my original series I'm writing. The only reason they're up in here is because I'm slowly integrating Sargent, Indie, and Violet into my series and my readers over on tumblr might appreciate the little nod. ;) I wouldn't be throwing around random OCs unrelated to the plot otherwise.


	37. Fallen Kin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gansey-Sargents do everything in their power to help Adam save his little family... but is it too little too late?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could've gotten this chapter to you guys a few days earlier, but I thought I had a whole ton more words in me for this one... But I'm stuck on the final scene I'm posting here and I'm tired of fighting to make fetch happen, so I'm leaving you with a cliffy instead so I can move on without looking like I skipped an entire scene...

I.  

Nightmares seem to happen exclusively in Monmouth’s living room lately. Some unwritten rule was scrawled all over the contract Gansey signed when he handed over thousands for the run-down, abandoned factory all those years ago. Little did he know, he’d made a date with the devil that day, and days following, in befriending one Ronan Lynch, the heretofore cause of so many nightmares as of late.

Gansey’s tired of cleaning up his messes, dreading telephone conversations such as these, ones claiming his friend for hospital meat. He’s in Washington D.C. Declan’s with him. Or rather… watching over him in ICU, where he has yet to wake up from his trauma.

A blazing car wreck. Gansey should’ve known he’d go out with a bang.

God… _Don’t think like that…_ He knows the hell Ronan’s put his family through the past few months and were he anyone _but_ his best friend and brother, he’d say good riddance for karma coming back to bite him. Good riddance that a spurned husband and beaten daughter have been avenged in the dead of night.

Yet when he makes the call to bring them the news, the cosmic shift of vengeance in their favour has taken its toll. Adam’s explanations are broken and incoherent, stolen words scattered here and there around choked breaths. Something’s happened. Adam already knows before Gansey’s even said a word.

It’s Violet. _Sargent_ already knows and he claws at his father’s arm, waiting impatiently for news, or for an invitation to snatch up the phone and receive dreadful verdicts himself. “Dad… Dad, what’s he saying?” his voice is shaky and pitched way up beyond his natural tone. “What’s Adam saying? Is Violet okay? Dad, _is Violet okay_?”

Violet’s not okay. This, Gansey finds, is abundantly clear. But he can’t very well tell his son that when he’s moments from falling to pieces himself. So he reprimands him instead.

“Sargent, back _off_ ,” is his barked out demand, full of paternal authority unlike anything either of his children see much of. The command is punctuated with a rough knock to his son’s shoulder, just enough to push him out of his way and set a disbelieving scowl to his face. “There’s nothing you can do right now. Just… go make yourself useful elsewhere.”

But Sargent knows his extent of usefulness narrows down to the pinprick that has become Violet Lynch’s fate and he needs _answers_ to assuage him. He knows very well if his father were in his position, and that was Blue out there, in a strange town, alone and confused, and frightened, he’d be beside himself too.

“I just… I need her to be okay, Dad,” Sargent insists. “Surely you understand.” And of course, Gansey does. He may as well have lost one of his closest friends tonight, and his entire family would be bereft because of it. How do you reconcile with something as big as this?

He turns his attention back to the phone and Adam. “Look, Adam, I need to go. Sargent is freaking out. I’m going to send Helen with the chopper to get you. Bring Violet straight back here. Whatever’s going on with her won’t be properly treated in Salem or Washington. Just get her back here and to Cabeswater. We’ll play it by ear from there.”

Understandably, the panic-stricken father on the other end isn’t quite ready to release his only ties of comfort in his friend by hanging up, and fusses through several aborted pleas to keep him on the line that much longer. He can’t bear the thought of being left alone, in this new town, with his daughter plunged into a death sleep by a husband dying in an ICU five hours away. Adam’s not in his right mind. He blames Ronan, curses his name for what he’s done to their daughter, when he spent so long trying to stave off this very thing. If he’d just… taken care of himself. Taken care of himself like Adam begged him to again and again. If not for him, for Violet. But Ronan didn’t listen. Ronan never listens.

Not anymore.

And now… his days are numbered and so are Violet’s. And Adam’s going to lose his whole family in one fell swoop.

_God damn it, Ronan Lynch._

 

II.

 

Helen Gansey comes for Violet four hours later, impossibly poised and put together, her business-like top-knot and crisp blazer paired with kitten heels and skinnies runs at odds with the frantic nature of the situation. She’s far too calm, far too collected, when two people are at the brink of death.

“I dropped Dick off in D.C. on my way here,” she explains coolly. “He wanted to be sure someone was there when Ronan woke up.”

Gansey’s sister doesn’t say it in so many words, but she doesn’t have to: Adam’s allegiance is torn between his husband and his daughter. And given the animosity between them lately, it’s no wonder Gansey worried Ronan would wake up alone, in a strange place. Adam suspects no matter how harrowing the experience, Ronan still wouldn’t want him to be the first person he sees. Adam may not hate him; he may not want anything bad- not quite this bad- to come of him, but he knows they’ve come too far in this fight for a single car accident to mend their bridges. Not when Adam’s the reason Ronan was on the road in the first place.

But if Adam had to do it all gain, he’d still run. He’d simply be more wary of what havoc separating Violet from the magic that brought her to life would wreak. He wouldn’t travel so far. Maybe set up in Washington. At least it’s a place Violet knows and associates with family.

He’s not going to see Ronan. He can’t do it. Not when Violet takes precedence. She’s imprinted on his heart and mind, and has been ever since that night sixteen years ago, when a single phone call from Blue at the Barns changed his life. Ronan Lynch brought him the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him. He can’t abandon her now.

So he’s taking her home. Taking her home in ardent hopes that Cabeswater will take her up in its loving arms and cure her. If the leylines can do it for Aurora Lynch, they can do it for her granddaughter. They _have_ to.

 

III.

 

Whatever Gansey imagined had befallen Ronan isn’t even close to the real thing. It’s worse. _Much_ worse. He finds Declan, pacing, restless in the waiting room, thumb between his teeth with ragged worry.

He releases a staggered breath and rushes to him, all sense of his usual stoic professionalism lost in the urgency of the situation. “Dick,” he breathes, relieved to see a familiar face finally in his corner. Of anyone to aid him in this situation, Declan trusts Gansey above all others. “It’s not good,” he manages with a shake of his head. His hands shake and he says no more as he leads Gansey down winding corridors and finally to a closed door where a doctor watches over a man masked over with tubes in a sterile hospital bed.

They’ve bandaged him up, so much so that Ronan’s unrecognizable under all the gauze, bloodied patches seeping through the fine wrappings holding him together. “He’s got too much damage to his lungs. It’s all… toxic fumes from the fire when the car blew. They say it’s a miracle they even got him out of the wreckage alive.”

Gansey hates to ask it, but he knows he has to. “What are his chances?” They have to stay business-like about this. That’s the world they’ve both been born into. Both Gansey and Declan know all too well how to save face even in the worst of situations.

Declan shakes his head. “Not good,” he repeats, unwilling or unable to express his brother’s dire fate in any other terms. “His burns and lung damage are too extensive. Dick, he’s as good as dead…”

Gansey wants to tell Declan not to think that way. They can’t _afford_ to think that way. Not when it’s more than just Ronan’s life on the line. It’s Violet’s and Matthew’s and…

God, how is their family going to recover from this? If they lose both Violet _and_ Ronan… His son will be inconsolable. Sargent… He’s already a mess and he’s not even got all the details.

Ronan _has_ to wake up. They have no other option here. “Do whatever you need to do. I’ll help pay for it, I don’t care. Just bring him home _alive_.”

 

IV.

 

Aurora’s there to greet them when they finally bring Violet to Cabeswater. Blue leads the charge while Adam’s too shaken to give orders. He, Sargent, and Indie accompany their sleeping beauty into the forest, where the cosy little cottage welcomes them home.

Aurora’s warm and fervent when they reach her, greeting with open arms in the face of tragedy. She may not know precisely what’s happened to her son, but she knows enough to understand something awful has happened to her little family. Matthew, who’s cared for her after all these years, in the comfort of the forest, dropped into a dead faint late last night while washing dishes, a dinner plate sliding unnoticed from his hands to shatter on the hardwood floor as he went down.

Like Violet, he never woke up.

Aurora Lynch knows her middle son has fallen the minute Adam brings her granddaughter, limp in his arms, up the flower-led path toward her quaint little woodland cottage. Never before has she been on the other side of this dream world her family lives in. So long has she spent, being protected and watched over following her husband’s death, having never known precisely what her boys did for her, and what she’s missed, that all she can do now is do repay the favour. But this family owes each other nothing. The Lynches don’t run on back scratching. They run on _honesty_ , a trait Aurora interprets through kindness she instilled on her sons from childhood.

And so she does not hesitate to invite her son-in-law and his found-family into her home, gently offering up the empty space on the queen-sized bed beside her own sleeping son. Matthew lies barefoot in paisley pajamas on top of a patchwork quilt Aurora made by hand, whiling away the hours in her solitary confinement while she’s so beholden to the leylines for her survival. She’s lain an afghan knitted in primary colours over his sleeping form and does the same for Violet now as Adam lays her down against the pillows.

She’s so peaceful in slumber. They both are. If ever there was any question whether Violet is a true Lynch, the proof lies here, in this bed. Violet and Matthew’s golden curls mingle against the feather-down, their long, fair lashes cast shadows against their cheeks. They’re both far too pure to deserve such a fate of simple nothingness. Do they dream, Aurora wonders, like she dreamed? Do they dream sweet things, or nightmares, fraught with hellish fighting tooth and nail to claw their way out of their current predicament?

“You think you can wake them?” the ethereal Lynch matriarch inquires of Blue, who has both her children on hand for this very purpose. Between the three of them, they’re bound to wake something in the forest. If Sargent can shake the trees into awareness with his singular sonar and Indie can pinpoint love and nurture it to life, the three of them together should surely cause seismic waves.

 “I think we can give it a fair shot,” Blue affirms. And if they can’t, the women of 300 Fox Way will stand in as backup for Plan B. She’s already cracking her knuckles and settling on the edge of the bed, fingers slipping through Violet’s curls. Her goddaughter doesn’t stir under the gentle scrutiny. “We’ll fix you, sweetheart. Don’t you worry.” Blue’s mother’s touch trails her brow to cheek, down her jawline. “Sargent?” Her free hand reaches out, gesturing for him to join her on the bed.

Sargent releases a breath, nerves clumping in his throat, and sits at Violet’s feet. Indie comes to them, sitting on Matthew’s side. Blue’s hands seek her children’s. Indie takes up her brother’s empty hand when he offers it. Deep breaths all around.

“You ready?” Blue checks between them. Indie nods, eager to do what she does best, while Sargent swallows his fear and tips his head with uncertain confirmation. “Remember. Be strong, be confident, be firm with articulating what you want. The leylines are very literal. One single misunderstanding and we could have trouble on our hands. Do you understand me?” More nodding, this time vigorous.

“Mom…” Sargent falters, gaze fallen to Violet, inert in her slumber. Of the three of them, he’s the least practiced in his craft. The last time he used his gift, Cabeswater chased him out with nightmare visions of its dream girl being sucked into its bowels. He doesn’t know if he can handle a repeat.

“Sargent, honey, don’t doubt yourself now,” Blue warns, squeezing her son’s hand. “You can do this. Just… follow that song in your heart and think of how much you love her. Cabeswater will do the rest. The forest loves her too.”

“Love will bring her back,” Indie insists in her tinkling little fairy’s voice, dimples in her smile making up for the gleam that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She of all of them here knows they have to stay positive. They’re the Gansey-Sargents after all and the Gansey-Sargents breathe _optimism_. This is going to work. It _has_ to.

Indie closes her eyes first. Blue passes Sargent one last concerned glance, intent on building him up with the greatness she knows he possesses. They can’t do this without him. He’s the one with the strongest connection to Violet. He knows her _soul_ because she’s bared it to him more than anyone else could ever _dream_. Sargent knows her like no one else does.

Blue’s set up all the necessary ritualistic tokens her mother handed her with the best of luck. Incense, candles, crystals… With any luck, they won’t need the heft of 300 Fox Way’s collective psychic power. Her eyes slide closed. She takes one final peek at her son, relieved to find that with some hesitation, his lashes flutter up against his cheek and stay there. Blue straightens. “And so we begin.”

 


	38. Steadfast Companion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarge refuses to give up as Violet sleeps on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a tight feeling in your chest kind of chapter, from start to finish, so I apologise for the grief and pain... (but also, no I don't because I thrive off this sort of thing...)
> 
> Sometimes, truly hurtful plots sneak up on you and you just _have_ to use 'em. 
> 
> I feel like there should be trigger warnings here, but I don't know what they'd be. So... hmm... intense medical conversations, coma mentions...(???)

I.

They’ve tried everything. Every combination of the Gansey-Sargents’ gifts… Adam calling out to Cabeswater to hear them… Sargent singing… Indie, reaching into the deepest corners of the forest, as well as the room, for the fiercest of love for this girl, lying inert beneath their concerned watch. By all accounts, no one in this world loves Violet Lynch more than the people in this room. Perhaps the only soul missing is the one who put her here in the first place… and even then, Ronan’s presence would undoubtedly skew the atmosphere drastically in the opposite direction. They don’t need this protective bubble for their girl sullied with any more negativity.

There was a moment, a breathtaking, blossoming moment, they thought they’d done it. Matthew Lynch stirred, easy as anything at the slightest magical provocation, his mother quiet and patient by his side. With his hand kept safe in her clutches, he squeezed her fingers, long fair lashes fluttering to life. Matthew proves a responsive dream and he instills hope in the family and friends, gathered around the room, waiting with baited breath for his niece to join them in the land of the living.

But Violet Lynch is not so accommodating. Sargent’s breath is ragged, clipped with hope dying with every second she remains impassive. Not a flutter, not a twitch. Not even a breath out of place.

She remains the same, asleep and unaware.

She sleeps on.

Indie and Blue both share a creeping concern that it’s Adam that clouds over the atmosphere, keeping his daughter under her spell. Not of anything of his choosing, but rather, an accumulation of the many distractions that keep his mind wandering elsewhere. His guilt eats him up inside, as if his every preoccupation falls to Ronan, on his own deathbed in Washington. Adam’s always suspected he would have to choose between the two of them one day. Twenty years past, he would have undoubtedly picked Ronan every time. But now, he’s someone’s _father._ Arguably, he’s more of a father than a husband right now. And Violet takes precedence. Yet he still struggles with abandoning Ronan and leaving Gansey to pick up the pieces.

Violet was right: he was running away the minute things got worse. And now he’s making her pay for it…

 _Jesus_ \- and can’t there be a simple way to walk away from a toxic situation without stirring up a hurricane in his path? He can’t risk hurting anyone else in his attempts to build himself back up from what he once was before this pain overtook him and forced an identity onto him. Hell, Adam Lynch doesn’t know himself without the pain. He’s simply… non-existent. But what’s borne from pain is resilience, and Adam’s got it in spades. He likes to think he brought his daughter up to possess that very same resilience, yet here she is, unable to fight this battle.

It’s Blue who admits defeat first, despite the fact that almost everyone has all but given up by now. Her children are weary, and are grateful for the respite from the draining rituals sapping at their magical stores. With a much needed break ahead of them, they curl up on the bed with Violet, one Gansey-Sargent sibling on either side. Indie rolls over, her forehead brushing her shoulder before burying in her collar bone. Sargent’s buried in her neck on the opposite side and the pair of them fling arms intertwined across her body, keeping her safe: a human barricade from any further ill-wills. The sight just about breaks Blue’s heart.

It’s time to call in the cavalry.

II.

The news is grim as Calla looms over the bed, Maura’s hand still clasped in hers. She’ll say what Maura can’t bear to tell them. She knows how to be brusque and to the point. But most importantly of all, they don’t have time to fuck around… “This isn’t a magical thing,” she announces to the room at large, stunning everyone into silence. Sargent’s mouth drops open while his sister flops down, boneless onto the bed.

“What do you _mean_ this isn’t a magical thing?” Adam bursts out from across the room. The very suggestion is insulting. “She’s asleep because her father’s _dying_.”

Calla sighs, already aware of everything he’s been through and how much it will cloud his better judgments. “Look, you need to take this girl to the ER or she’ll _die_.”

Adam’s arms shoot out in a desperate flail of a father about to lose everything. “For God’s sake, she’s _already_ dying.”

And for all the years that have passed her by since that scared seventeen year old boy first stumbled into 300 Fox Way in a Coca Cola t-shirt, looking for answers for his friend, Calla’s no less spry than she once was. She’s in his face in an instant, standing far bigger than Adam ever could be, despite the fact he’s got at least a head on her.

“Then you have nothing to lose in sending her to the hospital, do you?” Her arched brow sends challenge, her purple mouth ticked in a smirk, knowing full well she’s in the right. She sees _everything_. And Violet Lynch needs medical attention, not a psychic. “There are dark forces working within her. There’s no denying. They’ve always been there, lying in wait, and this may just be their chance to come to the surface. But right now, if you don’t get her to a neurologist, those demons won’t have a body to pilfer.”

She falls back, arms crossed over her chest. Adam’s breath catches as he stares down at this firecracker of a woman, standing square against him, and not letting up. Calla knows what’s best. He turns to Maura for answers. From two paces away, she gives a slight, grim nod in confirmation. “Get her to a doctor, Adam,” she murmurs, tone sad and to the point. This girl may not be a blood relative, but Violet’s as good as a third grandchild to her and she won’t let everything this poor girl’s been through lately bring her down.

At the dreamer’s bedside, Sargent’s gasping around the only word that he’s processed within this conversation. “Neurologist,” he chokes out, cold and shaking. “W-why would she need a neurologist? What’s _wrong_ with her?”

Calla passes him a bitter smile as Blue winds an arm around her son’s shoulders and squeezes him to her. “Unfortunately, that we cannot tell you. All I know is, you’ve got to dismantle this bomb before it detonates. You don’t have much time.”

Sargent’s lips purse as his gaze falls back to Violet, so deceptively peaceful in her deep sleep. The rise and fall of her chest is the only comfort he receives from the sight, knowing she’s alive.

For now.

“We should do as she says,” he murmurs, barely aware of his own words. He’s working on autopilot: do what needs to be done to save the love of his life. He doesn’t know what he’s gonna do without her, should anything happen… It doesn’t even bear thinking about. He turns to Adam, certain now, determination blazing. “If you don’t take her, _I_ will.”

He’s got the car. And Blue and Indie have his back. Undoubtedly, Adam Lynch will stand down over this. They don’t have much choice.

Adam’s been faced with too many moral dilemmas lately, none with ideal answers. If he sends her back to the hospital now, what answers could they possibly receive? She’s comatose, with no true medical causes? There’s nothing they can do besides let this play out? Hook her to life support and suggest they think about doing the kinder thing and pull the plug?

He can’t do it. He _won’t_ do it. Not when he had to step out once already to take a call from Gansey, who speaks of Ronan, in the worst state imaginable, with no one there for him but his best friend and a practically estranged brother. No daughter, no husband. He’s alone and dying and it’s a worse fate than Violet’s, in the middle of Cabeswater, where the forest gives her its life’s blood to keep her alive. If they don’t ever have to pull the plug on Violet, they may one day have to make that call for Ronan. And he’s put them through too much lately for Adam to truly make that call. He will not make that decision for his daughter. He will not.

Deep down, that’s not what it’s about. It’s bigger than that. It’s knowing _he_ did this. Not Ronan, like everyone expected. Adam did this. He did this he did this he did this. This is on Adam’s head. If he hadn’t left, taking Violet with him, he wouldn’t be stretching her thinner and thinner the further away he drove. And Ronan wouldn’t be compelled to drive across the country to bring her home.

 _Why did you do it, Adam?_ Ronan’s voice echoes, menacing in his head. _What were you hoping to achieve?_

In one fell swoop, he laid out the cards of disaster for both daughter and husband, all in the name of his selfish need to save himself. He hadn’t for a single second thought of his family’s wellbeing.

“I don’t need to hear them tell me my daughter’s dying,” he bites out, head steadily pounding with the implications. _I did this I did this I did this…_ “I _will not_.”

“Adam,” Blue warns, Sargent still firmly in her grip. But he’s already trudging for the door and out he goes, released out into the world where such heavy decisions don’t weigh him down and box him in.

They stand in silence for an extended moment, taking in a father’s grief. He’s overwhelmed, each of them know it, and faced with unspeakable tragedy that seems to continue piling up.

It’s Blue who finally breaks the silence, her own decision made. Sargent’s already made the decision for them all, ironically the clearest head in the room, save for the ladies of 300 Fox Way.

“We’re taking her.”

III.

Sargent didn’t think they’d be here again, so soon after Violet’s concussion, yet here they are, back between those sterile walls, doctors and nurses tucking in the sick, injured, and dying, and he won’t let his girl be the latter. They can pull her out of this. They _can_. The past few hours of trying and trying and trying and getting nowhere is just a set back. It _has_ to be.

_Please wake up, Violet. Please wake up…_

The doctor comes back with a prognosis after lengthy scans lasting hours on end and keeping everyone on edge. Adam hasn’t even set foot in the hospital yet, still too tangled up in his impending losses. He can’t save them both…

Fortunately, Blue and Gansey are all over Violet’s emergency contacts list after Ronan and Adam and they’re as good as family. Blue stands with Sargent in receiving an update on Violet’s status.

The questions the doctor has for the pair of them are too much for them to answer in any great detail. Sarge stands in for Adam where he knows Violet best, but otherwise, some questions are left unanswered.

_Did Violet ever complain about experiencing any headaches? Was she experiencing any significant stress in her life? Has she experienced any trauma to the head recently? Was she at all depressed or suicidal?_

The questions carry on in a similar vein, helping to paint a picture of how she got this way. Finally, the doctor sighs, glancing up from his clipboard in a professional manner. He reaches out for Blue’s shoulder and gives it a pre-emptively consolatory squeeze. “Look, I’m sorry Ms. Sargent. There is no easy way to say this, but your goddaughter has a blood clot in her brain, likely caused by her recent concussion. Scans indicate she’s suffered a cerebral thrombosis, or what can be referred to as an ischemic stroke.”

Sargent’s world begins to tilt as the words hit him. _Blood clot… Stroke…_ Calla was right. It’s _not_ a magic thing. He hasn’t been there for her, aside from that single phone conversation before she went under. She complained about being tired all the time. He’d naturally credited her new bouts of narcolepsy as a sign she’d been too far away from the ley lines. And perhaps she was… But previous hellish attacks of weeks past took more than just her memories, instead leaving a calling card of a steadily creeping seep of blood throbbing in her brain, slowing sapping her of all energy and will to carry on. And now she’s here, back in a hospital bed, slowly suffocating and there’s nothing to be done for her and she truly is a ticking time bomb this time and and and…

His vision fades out and his mother barely has time to catch him before he hits the floor in a dead faint. 

IV.

He comes to not moments later, to the matter of fact stripping down of Violet’s circumstance, becoming grimmer and grimmer all the time. His mother stands, arms crossed across from the doctor, asking about her goddaughter’s chances.

“All we can do right now is put her on anticoagulants,” the doctor admits.

Blue frowns. “And how effective will those be?”

The doctor shakes his head. “It depends on the patient. It’s hard to tell this early on, especially with the young ones. She could make a full recovery and be totally fine. Or she could wake up and lose a part of herself. Usually motor skills or speech patterns… Worst case scenario, she never wakes up, or dies.”

 _Worst case scenario…_ A knot wells up in Sargent’s throat, in his heart, in his stomach, in his gut. Right down to his toes. He hates this helplessness. This complete inability to _give_ Violet something. _Anything_ … But she has no respite. Not from what Ronan’s done to her, and now, not from what Adam’s done. Her parents are almost as bad as each other, the only difference between them being Ronan went out that day to hurt someone; to get retribution. Adam and his good intentions were simply trying to do what was best for her, and instead, delivered her to her greatest nightmare.

He can’t take this anymore. All this talk about death and dying… They’re not even giving her a chance. It’s been a _day_ and they’re already discussing worst-case scenarios.

A blood clot. The love of his life has a blood clot in her brain. And there’s no knowing if they can treat it.

A sick, wounded sound escapes him, like the whine of a dog, paw caught in a bear-trap. He drops his head into his hands, forehead tucked between his knees and tries to breathe. She’s going to die. And it’s not a Ronan thing, not a magic thing. It’s a normal, human thing. A head injury thing. A thing that could’ve been prevented.

He has to leave. He springs up from his chair and stalks out of the room, the only hint of anyone taking notice is his mother’s belated, yet preoccupied cry of _Sargent_! as he makes his dramatic exit.

Sargent doesn’t stop as the doors to the hospital entrance part for him without a single touch. He contemplates taking the car, but he’s too shaken to drive right now. Best not. So he stalks his way out of the parking lot, down the streets, down down down, until he finds himself at a bridge overlooking one of the only bypasses in Henrietta. He stands, pressed up against the barrier, wind whipping at his back.

  And he screams. Hands in his hair, tugging and desperate, he screams until his throat tightens up and dries out. And even still, he’s not done. “Is this what you wanted?” he shouts into the traffic below. “Is this your great design? Taking a girl off this Earth before she could even _make_ something of herself? I’ve never asked for a thing. Not a damn thing. Two weeks. Two blissful weeks with this girl. That’s all you’re willing to give me? I’ve been nice. I’ve been kind. I’ve done everything a good person should do. And still, it’s not enough. It’s never going to _be_ enough, is it? Because you’re just going to take her from me anyway! What did I do? What did _we_ do to deserve this? For once, I just wanted her to be safe and happy and loved. And now… she’s dying and you can’t… you won’t…”

Tears stream down his face and his words drop out from the bottom of his glass, perpetually half full, now revised to accommodate this existential crisis. “If she dies…” he starts, lip quivering. His throat’s beginning to close around his words and they choke him with their knife-prick. “If she dies, I die. I don’t know who I am without her. Who do you expect me to be with her gone? Why would you _do_ this? To an innocent girl? _Why_?”

His knuckles scrape away against his cheeks, furiously blotting out his tears that just keep coming, a veritable downpour. “I love her. I love her, dammit. And I need her to stay. Or I die. You hear me?” He doesn’t know who he’s screaming to. Ronan, Cabeswater, or some faceless god with a sick sense of humour. He just knows that he needs to get this out. Needs someone or something to hear him, when no one else has in all this thus far.

“Please,” he begs, quieter this time. “Please bring her back to me. Please. Bring her _back_.”

“Sargent,” a voice comes soft behind him, like a gentle answer to his plea. Instantaneous. But not from some omnipotent being, dropped down to save this impossible girl from this impossible punishment she doesn’t deserve.

Noah Czerny stands at a distance, every piece of him morose with regret that long since settled into his bones when they buried his body, seven years after it was battered by someone he trusted. He knows better than anyone what Violet’s going through: being hurt by someone you trusted so blindly.

“She’s going to die, Noah,” Sargent bites out, stepping down from the jut of a ledge before the bridge gives way to rail. “She’s going to die and there’s not a thing I can do about it.” A few more steps and he’s enveloped in Noah’s arms, his cold, ghostly fingers carding through his hair in a soothing gesture borrowed from Blue’s own practiced mother’s touch.

“Shh… no she’s not,” he insists, to calm him down beyond all else. “No, she’s not.”

Sargent shifts in his grip to look him in the eye. “You know? You can tell me that for certain? You _saw_ her?”

This boy… This boy is so desperate, so desperate for good news and Noah, like everyone else has nothing for him. So all he can do is offer him a forlorn shake of his head. “All I know is that you saw a part of her, in that forest. A part of her that could still happen. Futures can change, Sargent. And hers has always been tenuous. She’s always this constantly oscillating thing. She keeps shifting every day… All you can do is hope.”

“What if…” Sargent swallows back his dread. “What if hope isn’t enough?” His lip quivers and it’s just about the most heartbreaking thing Noah’s ever seen, watching someone who is arguably one half of the epitome of hope lose sight of everything he believes in. “Noah, I love her. I love her more than anything else in this entire world. I can’t- I can’t lose her.”

“Then fight for her,” Noah insists. That spark needs to flicker back into being, brightening his eyes once more. This is the one person who singlehandedly put a smile on Violet Lynch’s face. He did that. And now someone needs to remind _him_ how to smile. “Be there for her every step of the way. So she knows. So she knows you’ll always be there.”

Sargent nods, vigorous, snuffling back his ugliest of tears. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll fight for her. Like I always have.” 

V.

They keep her another five days for observation before anyone’s allowed to sign her out and take her home. Home to Cabeswater and a kindhearted grandmother who’s been here before. She’s kept under lock and key, carefully watched for so much as a minimal pin-prick of change in that clever, deteriorating brain of hers, hooked to a drip that hangs, ominous in its intentions. It could save her life, or it could ruin it.

The whole thing is a mess of needles and blood tests and hospital beds and just… sleep. Always sleep. Sargent stays steady by her side, even when every poke and prod makes him queasy with reminders of what she’s going through and what she has yet to overcome. He’s not going to leave her. He _won’t_ leave her. He made a promise, to keep her out of harm’s way and he failed her. Some terrible things out there in the world can’t be stopped. He couldn’t stop this, nor could he have ever predicted this. So he keeps her company, her steadfast companion, for as long as the hospital will have him. And even then, going home is a nightmare. He lies awake at night, pressed into her section of the bed, right in the middle, for optimum warmth, once caught between both Gansey-Sargent siblings. Her sweet, floral scent permeates her pillows, as if her curls had only been there mere hours before.

If Sargent sifts through Violet’s wardrobe in lieu of his own lately, no one says a word against him. Her sweaters, overlong in the sleeves, are soft, so soft, he can almost imagine her holding him to her, but this time, there is no breath on his cheek, no roaming hands, no offhand compliments veiled behind simple insults, pressed into his skin with a kiss.

It’s five days and the sound of her laugh slips from him, and it shocks him how little time passes before something so imprinted on his mind can just… disappear, as if it’s never was. He shares a dialogue with himself, playing the part of Violet, who would undoubtedly tell him to buck up, with plenty of choice swear words to spare.

_I told you this would happen. Nothing’s permanent. We’re all gonna fucking die, one day. It’s just a shame the last thing I’ll ever see is your stupid face. And the last thing I’ll hear is your stupid voice. Oh, Stretch… this is a fucking nightmare._

_I know. Oh my god, Violet, I know._

They release her on the sixth day. She’s looking stable. Stable enough to be moved home. A good sign. Blue and Adam grappled for hours over what bringing her home any earlier would mean. Adam refuses to engage, when guilt and grief rattle him in turn and it’s all he can do not to turn his back and shut himself behind his bedroom door with a quiet click, barricading himself in to keep from hurting anyone else dear to his life. Blue’s found him more often times than not curled up on the queen sized bed he once shared with Ronan, two days a week. A safe space where pattering little feet used to crowd in during the early mornings, giggling, carefree monkeys jumping on the bed. A fair head of curly-q’s burrowing up, fond and safe and sound, between two fathers who loved her very much.

And now Adam has neither of them.

Adam wants his daughter home. Of course he does. But he can hardly bear it, when he knows bringing her home against doctor’s orders would be signing her death sentence. So she stays the full five days, until the medication begins to even her out, and loved ones can be fully trusted with administering her drugs.

Home is not home to her anymore. The industrial cement sanctuary of Monmouth Manufacturing is no good for keeping magic in. Cabeswater is her home now. They each begin to suspect maybe it has been all along. Aurora Lynch promises to take good care of her. She makes up an extra bed for Sargent and Adam, without further discussions. Adam can hardly stand it, but Sargent’s vowed to stay until the bitter end.

And so he will.

It’s just Sargent and Aurora on most days, diligently watching over their dream girl, deceptively peaceful as ever, shrouded in her luxurious pillows and blankets, like a fair beautiful Viking queen, set for burial at sea, or the Lady of Shalot, floating to her death. Ophelia, slowly drowning, flowers plucked from her hair.

God, she’s beautiful. And god, she’s _broken_.

Sargent’s never spent time alone with Aurora before. She’s not his grandmother, but he knows how Violet loves her. They keep each other company, in these lonely days. She teaches him card games, how to knit, sits him down with old photo albums: throwbacks to his own past and farther. Best of all, she indulges in family secrets, sprinkled with fine spices and herbs. The Lynch family recipes fall into his lap, and when sitting with Violet proves too much, he cooks. He cooks and he bakes and he fills the cottage with delectable smells no one could possibly sleep through.

He makes pancakes one morning, and hopes. He hopes and he hopes and he hopes.

Hours turn into days. Days turn into weeks. And weeks turn into a month.

A month she’s been gone. Yet she’s still here. He curls up with her like he used to. Balances a plate in his lap and quietly tries to savour the taste of maple syrup on his tongue, coupled with the ooze of strawberries, trying to resurrect the memory of their first date, but it tastes ashen in his mouth and Violet’s no more alert beside him.

He talks to her. About everything. About nothing. Mostly about how much he misses her. Sometimes, Aurora leaves a dusty tome on the bedside table, and on a more lucid day, Sargent might read to her.

He’s memorized her medication regimen, and administers it like clockwork. Every other evening, he sponges her down without a single fuss, with or without Aurora’s help. He remains immensely grateful for the time he can spend alone with her; grateful that no one’s come to interfere, and tell him it’s time to let her go; let her find peace, wherever peace may find her.

Indie visits, at least once a week. Maybe more. Sargent’s lost track of all sense of time and lost sight of who’s been puttering around while he remains, in this haze with his sleeping love.

She’s sad, as she stands on the threshold of the cottage, hesitant, as if afraid entry will cost her her good health. As if this fatality of Violet’s is catching. Sarge always has the same speech planned out for his sister.

“I’m not coming home,” he admits at the door, his elbow and wrist poised against the wooden frame. He’s tired and ragged and could use some much needed sleep after everything he’s been through in the many days hence. But sleep is the last thing he can think of at a time like this. Not when sleep is the one thing slowly pulling the love of his life to pieces. 

“Sarge, _please_ ,” Indie begs, still standing, desperate, on the front porch. “Stop doing this to yourself. You’re clearly hurting. Stop putting up a strong front! Do you think you’re the only one who cares for her? Who would drop _everything_ to watch over her? Sarge, I love her _too_. You don’t have to do this _alone_.”

“I’m not alone,” Sargent murmurs, lip worried between his teeth. The haze has barely lifted and all he knows is this tiny, tiny world he’s created for himself and his beautiful, tragic girl. “Aurora’s here.”

Indie lets out an exasperated huff of a breath, hand tugged in her hair from the roots. The sight of her brother before her, every time she comes to barter for his health, shocks her every time. This is not the boy she grew up with. The boy she laughed with, and went on adventures with. This is not the boy who picks her up and whirls her around the kitchen upon first greeting of the day. Not the boy who would pull her into a headlock and muss her hair, affectionate as anything.

Not this boy.

This boy is skinny, and drawn, and tired, and lost, and skeletal, and _empty_. It breaks her heart to see him this way.

All she wants is for him to let her _in_. Let her share his burden. He doesn’t have to do this alone. “You and Aurora are not enough. There are more of us willing to help. We can help you. Sarge, please take care of yourself.”

A sickening choking sound escapes him. “I-I can’t. Not when she’s…” He trembles, a violent shudder from his lips to his toes. Indie knows she’s struck a nerve. He’s so ragged, the evening shadows seem to claim him as one of them, the dark circles under his eyes only further proof of his transformation. “I-I can’t… I can’t leave her. Not until she wakes up.”

“Sarge…” Indie’s second sigh is softer, more full up with sympathy that squeezes that knot in her throat. She’s heard it before; heard it every time she’s come for him and he’s refused. It’s always the same. Sarge refuses to leave his post and Indie doesn’t have the heart to drag him out of Cabeswater, kicking and screaming. No one does… Not when the doctors have practically signed Violet’s life away in her numbered days.

It’s been a month, and something’s got to give.

And still, Sargent Gansey falls away with his sleeping beauty, a Disney prince all on his own. True love’s kiss won’t wake her from her slumber. The myth is too opulent, and the curse too grand, too _real_ to allow it. Once upon a time, a kiss killed his father, and something akin to true love brought him back.

But Sargent’s discovered, true love is not a kiss. It’s a gesture. It’s a promise. It’s a commitment. It’s looking at your best friend for the first time with fresh eyes, and truly seeing them for who they are, and wanting to be with them, _always_ , for it. It’s sacrifice, and casting down your weapons and admitting defeat in the name of preserving something good, and pure, and _holy_.

So Sargent Gansey lays down his arms, and settles, cross legged, at the foot of the bed like an enlightened fool, and waits this out.

“You should sing to her,” Aurora suggests, gentle in her advisory, knowing all too well how fragile this boy is. One small misstep, and he’ll snap like a twig. “She’ll like hearing your voice.”

 A thought occurs to Sargent. He glances up at her from his position at Violet’s bedside. “Could _you_ hear things? When you were asleep?”

Aurora settles against the mattress, her long, slender fingers (Violet’s fingers), absently reaching out to fall in her granddaughter’s nest of curls. “Perhaps. One does not always remember what they’ve seen or heard, or felt when they dream. But one thing I’ve always known, without question, was that I sensed a presence, watching over me, protecting me. And I knew, when I awakened, my boys were there all along. When she wakes up, she’ll know you were there, always. So do all you can to remind her. Imprint yourself on her heart and give her something to come back to.”

Sargent heaves a sigh of a breath, fortified for the first time in weeks. It’s these words that cycle through his mind and soul at all times, a reminder of why he’s doing this, on his darkest of days. He presses up close to Violet, back to front, like any other night before, where she pushes back, insisting upon being closer- as close as physically possible and then some. His chin falls to her shoulder, his nose buried in her hair.

He cycles through a few songs in his mental catalogue, none quite fitting perfectly…

_Blackbird singing in the dead of night... Take these sunken eyes and learn to see. All your life. You were only waiting for a moment to be free._

Hmm... Almost… Not quite.

He clears his throat, building himself up. It’s become harder and harder to sing when your muse lies inert in your hands. The new words trip off his tongue, shaky, but no less beautiful, up against Violet’s ear. He can’t even fathom how long it’s been since she’s requested a song, a recital just for her: the only audience that’s ever mattered.

He swipes tears with the back of his hand, tired, too tired of all this. But the song trickles onward to its bittersweet end:

 _Bring him peace_ _, bring him joy. He is young. He is only a boy. You can take, you can give. Let him be, let him live. If I die, let me die. Let him live… Bring him home._

Bring her home.

Dear god, bring her home...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics pulled from The Beatles' "Blackbird" and Les Mis' "Bring Him Home"


	39. Incorruptible Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gansey comes home to Monmouth, desperately in need of some hope...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stand by for screaming...

I.

Gansey returns home at the turn of the third week. After days and days and days of watching over Ronan, and seeing little to no improvement, he can’t take it anymore. He hates seeing him this way, but he can’t stay. He can only handle so much of Declan pacing anxious holes into waiting room floors while doctors shove tubes down his brother’s throat to suction out all the toxins from his lungs.

 There’s too much.

He needs to go home. Home to his family. Home to Blue. Home to his kids. Home to Adam, who by all accounts, should be here, right now, in Gansey’s place. He needs to let Ronan go. If only for now…

His father offers him one of the patented Gansey cars with a broad sweep of his arm. If he could fly back, he would, but Helen’s become staunch in her refusal to continue enabling so much denial. She knows all too well her brother’s nothing but a stand in, and has been for weeks. She pitches a defiant protest, leaving her chopper a decided no-go and Gansey has no other choice but to accept the three and a half hour delay that comes with simple road maps and traffic lights. A man of luxury can’t have everything after all, not even in a time of urgency.

So he drives and steadfastly ignores the niggling reminder that it was the road that dragged Ronan Lynch down and pulled him under. Hours of sucking toxins from his lungs has garnered few results. The image of the tubes forced down Ronan’s throat and the choking, gagging, asphyxiating, juddering natural response sears into Gansey’s mind and he just can’t shake all that _pain_. He hopes whatever greets him back at Monmouth will bring him closer to something akin to faith. The thought of being swept up in Blue’s loving embrace and Sargent and Indie’s unwavering smiles, however small, even in the face of such torment, is the only thing that keeps him going.

 Richard Campbell Gansey III remains, full speed ahead.

Excelsior… Onward and upward…

 

II.

 

Blue greets him with aplomb, everything he expected her to be. He’s barely out of the car and the glass door to Blue Lily swings shut behind her as she rushes into his arms. “Jane,” he breathes into her hair, leaned down to match her height. Her arms wind ‘round his neck and hold him close, her own breath warm and clipped against his skin. Fingers slide through her choppy, dark mane and she sighs her relief. “Oh, Jane…”

“Don’t,” she sighs in response, the pads of her fingers tucking in, feather light against the soft tufts of hair at his nape. “Just don’t say anything.” With her request comes desperation he’s known all too well in the last few weeks.

Gansey pulls closer to her, pressing cheek to cheek, lips so close, yet not quite, and they’re seventeen again apiece, wishing desperately that they could embark on something they can’t have; something just out of their reach.

He kisses her to remind her that this is not then. This is not their tragedy. They’re here now and this is not his curse, nor his burden to bear. He broke away from his chains years ago. And this… this is something else. Something he’s keen to wash his hands of. “The kids here?” he finally dares to ask, when Blue’s shaking begins to subside to something akin to calm.

She clears her throat, but her voice still comes out small. “Indie’s here.” The distinct lack of Sargent’s presence, even in her words, speaks volumes and tugs at him in a complex way he does not quite understand, but knows full well to dread. Blue hesitates, like her son’s whereabouts are on the tip of her tongue. Deep down, they both know without putting words to it. Gansey knows full well where Sargent is. He just can’t bear to think of it now. But Richard Campbell Gansey IV is not the name that slips from between her teeth. “Gansey, Adam’s here too.” She says it like a warning, like she expects a fight to arise.

Gansey releases a breath, fraught with building tensions. “I need to talk to him.” He’s already rattling out of her grip, but she holds firm.

“Gansey,” she warns.

“Blue, I _have_ to.”

“Just…” she purses her lips, reaching up to swipe his fringe out of his eyes. He’s let his perfectly maintained cut, well suited to someone presidential, fall away to an unkempt mess of stress. He’s left off his grooming rituals in taking full responsibility for one of his closest friends and Blue’s heart squeezes around how startlingly her partner resembles their son, wasting away at a dying lover’s bedside. _God_ … look what this family has become… “…be gentle with him. He’s… not taking any of this well.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Jane, but none of us are. And rightly so.” He frees himself from her grip and trudges his way through the shop doors, and into the waiting arms of the home he’s known as his own for more than twenty years now.

Adam and Indie are just setting the table for dinner when Blue and Gansey finish their ascent to the first floor of Monmouth. Their daughter glances up, glassy eyed, like she’s seen a ghost. Her lips purse, pressed white as freshly steamed linen. Not even a flicker of a smile for her long-awaited father. Her hair falls lank around her shoulders, the once richly vibrant pinks and greens washed out with the passage of time he’s left her. She’s due for a new colouring. Indie never goes this long without a touch-up.

“Daddy,” she breathes, plate still clenched in her grip as she half leans over the table, frozen in the act of setting it down.

“Indigo Jane,” her name practically chokes out of him at the sight of her. And despite that haunted look on her face, he’s relieved, relieved, relieved to see his daughter again, safe and sound, precisely where she should be. He kneels, arms spread wide, an odd knee-jerk reaction, like all the times he returned home to his little girl. She’s still little now, but she was far littler, once.

This time though, she does not rush into his arms. She takes her time, setting down her plate and maneuvering around the bar stool impeding her, lethargic as she goes. A piece of her has departed, a missing piece to this boisterous, sweet puzzle of a girl. “Daddy,” she repeats, finally _finally_ reaching for him and squeezing her arms around his neck, a little too tight, but exactly what he needs, after hours of wondering and worrying, out on the road.

Her soft, little face presses close, against his cheek, against his neck, and though he’s known for his notorious cluelessness, the wet against his skin does not go unnoticed. His girl, his perfect, jubilant little girl, is falling apart at the seams, right here in his arms and he can do nothing for her but hold her tight and smooth circles with soothing hands across her back, as he did when she was still a child. And god, she’s _still_ a child. Such a small, pure, innocent thing, swept up in so much turmoil.

No child ever deserves to live through this.

God, and where is his _son_? Likely fighting this battle more valiantly than any of the adults in his life ever could.

He tries to pry his daughter away from the crook of his neck, dampened with warm, salty tears, and holds her at shoulder’s length. “Sweetheart, where’s your brother?” He swipes a tear from her cheek with a gentle sweep of his thumb as she hiccups back the worst of it.

Indie blinks. Then blinks again, as if dumbfounded that Gansey doesn’t _know_. Her lip trembles. “H-he’s with her,” she states it like a question, like she’s not so sure after all, so much has happened since she’s last seen him.

Of course he is. Gansey never had any doubts. “We’ll have to go see him then. He’ll be pleased to know I’m home.”

“No.” Indie shakes her head, slow and restless, troubled with the weight of the world Gansey never thought he’d ever see settle on her young, young shoulders. “You don’t understand. He’s _with_ her. A part of him died when she did. It’s like talking to a corpse.”

It takes a prolonged moment for her words to sink in. It’s naught but a simple slip of the tongue, but it meets its mark nonetheless and the damage is already done. Gansey’s hands slide away from her, grip slackened. From above them, Blue lets out a sharp, shocked _Indigo Jane!_ And Adam… Adam freezes in the kitchen doorway, eyes tipped out, empty and devoid of anything, anything at all.

“I…” he stumbles on his words, his breath choked off. Indie’s hands flutter to her mouth, instant regret settling there she wishes to take back. “I have to go.”

“Adam,” Blue tries, but they’ve done this dance so many times now, there’s no stopping him from pushing right past his dear friend, returned from cleaning up _his_ messes, without even a single acknowledgement, and slinks down the stairs in a rapid clip, his shiny black lawyer’s shoes clop clop clopping all the way down.

III.

Gansey has no choice but to find his way back in Cabeswater, a place that once housed so much adventure and triumph, all at once paired with loss and impending doom, until it was upon them, and there was nothing left but to embrace it as it washed over them. Cabeswater drowned their fears that fateful day; the day Richard Campbell Gansey III met his fate.

Now, as he sets foot in the cottage, laid down by a dreamer’s hands as an intended homestead to a dream, he realizes someone else’s fate is upon them, and has been looming heavy upon them all for months without them truly believing.

He _has_ to know. Has to see for himself, even if the sight is unbearable. He is fearless, and has been since his own death, set out twofold.

“Richard,” Aurora greets him familiar at the door, her voice soft and gentle, a mother’s breath that envelopes him and drops his panic from him by one small iota. “Please. He’s resting.”

 _He’s_ …

Gansey’s throat chokes tight with dread. He’s come this far. He can’t _not_ see his son now. “I _have_ to,” he insists, more to himself than to Aurora, shoulders back and fortified.

“I know,” she replies, just as gentle, just as kind, not a slip of judgment or adversity on her tongue. Her hand slides to his shoulder and away as she passes him on her way out. Without a single word, she grants him space; she grants him time, here, with his son, for the first time in a month.

Cabeswater holds its breath as he descends into the madness that has been Sargent Gansey’s entire world these many long, exhausting days. It’s hush hush hush, the silence encased within this cozy log cabin, rustic as anything in the midst of an ordinarily rustling forest. But even the trees lay still, as still as the two figures, sprawled on the bed: the frontispiece to the tableau spread before him.

_Oh god…_

And there he is. Or rather, there _they_ are, crowded in together, nice and close, the picture of two lovers clasped safe in one another’s arms. Time’s stopped, here in this cottage, here beneath the sheets, tucked away beneath afghans made with grandmother’s love. Not a pin drop would shatter the stillness of this scene.

Two ghouls lie in this bed, awash with wan complexions, parched and wanting, for what, they no longer ask, so lost are they to something beyond their control. To what? To the elements? To themselves? To a curse long since bestowed by an unknowing father who just wanted someone he could belong to and vice versa?

It takes stepping up to the bedside to realize the true horror of the tableau: Sargent’s eyes are wide open, glazed over and devoid, devoid of every spark of life that once gave him so much bright, cleansing _soul_.

Something of the spell shatters in an instant and when Cabeswater whispers, Sargent whispers back, a low, guttural tone that chills Gansey right down to his toes, curling even now in his loafers at the sound. The Latin, caressing his ears as gentle as Aurora Lynch’s touch, speaks at odds with Sargent’s unsettling hiss of what can only be English- he’s not predisposed to know any other language, not even that of the trees. But as Gansey dares lean in, he recognizes words befitting not of his son, but of _Violet_.

He’s not talking to Cabeswater. He’s talking to _himself_. She’s swallowed him up, body and soul and all that’s left is her voice in his head, tearing him apart piece by piece, until the only remaining part of him is her words: the perfect memorial for a dying girl.

_Nothing’s real… we’re all going to die one day. Everything’s a lie…_

Gansey imagines Sargent’s cautiously optimistic response to the contrary, but it never comes. Whatever response Sargent has to Violet’s fabricated cynicism plays out in his head, left utterly unsaid. “Sargent…” he breathes and this, this doesn’t feel real. This isn’t right. This isn’t _just_. This isn’t his _son_ …

He dares settle on the edge of the bed on Sargent’s side. His hand reaches out and hesitates, only a moment, before settling between his son’s shoulder blades. The two seraph mounts pull taut at the sudden obstruction, a violent flinching shudder.

Richard Campbell Gansey III is brave, and this is his _son,_ whether he looks it or not. And he _will_ see this through. He manages to pry him off Violet’s prone form, but not without resistance. Sargent flails, aimless, but frantic.

“No,” he cries out, voice hoarse and cold. Gansey’s managed to maneuver him around to face him and he claws, nails chipped with old blackened polish. “ _No_! NO! I’m not leaving… _no_!”

The horrible reality of being a parent is that Gansey’s been here before. He knows temper tantrums of days long past. He never thought he’d have to settle one, and hasn’t done, for at least ten years now, not even with a son as melodramatic as Sargent. He folds this flailing mass of fists and feet to him, as he once did to a colicky infant, or red faced toddler. He remembers that screaming hyperactive child. He remembers that boy, that poor poor boy who just wanted his needs met, and didn’t know how to articulate it.

Gansey knows who that boy was, and he knows who that boy grew up to be. They’re one and the same, and if he digs deep enough, he may just recover that gleaming star buried beneath all this grief for something he’s not even lost yet.

“Sargent… _Sargent_!” he tries, wrestling his son’s scrabbling wrists into his grip to hold him still. “Look at me. _Look at me_!” Gansey shakes him in his hands, and he twists, legs still wind-milling against the mattress as he screams, tousled head thrown back and tortured. “You’re bigger than this! You can fight this! You are more than just her guardian! You are a wonderful boy, with a big heart. You are loved. Sargent… Don’t _do_ this to yourself!”

Gansey runs on the knowledge that Sargent has to tire himself out sometime… They always do… So he lets his boy scream himself out and scream himself out and scream himself out, until his wailing gives way to tears of grief, tears of exhaustion, and he’s too bleary to comprehend what he was even struggling for. He collapses, right into his father’s arms, and just as he comforted Indie not an hour before, he does so now, for his poor, broken son. His wracking sobs rattle him, right down to his bones as his fingers scramble blindly for purchase on the collar of Gansey’s lemon yellow polo, grabby hands like that small child he once was, curled up and desperate for a midnight feeding from sleep-deprived new parents taking on childrearing for the first time.

Sargent quiets, falling limp in his father’s arms, too tired to fight any longer. Whatever delirium he suffers finally breaks as he gives way to drowsiness Gansey doesn’t know it yet, but this boy of his hasn’t slept in days and this… _this_ is torment.

He sighs and casts Sargent down against the pillows beside his sleeping beauty. Not a whit has changed, and yet the pair of them already seem more peaceful in slumber, like a dam has broken and at least one of them can make it through the night without fits of nightmares keeping them on a merry chase. 

IV.

Gansey doesn’t know what’s been going on here while he’s been gone, but he knows for a fact this was not what he expected when he finally came home to his family. And one man in particular has a hell of a lot to answer for.

“ _Hey_!” He snarls, shoving roughly at Adam’s shoulder. He’s lost all patience for being _civil_. Not when they’ve _talked_ about this. He made it abundantly clear on no uncertain terms would he let Adam bring his family down with him when he and Ronan inevitably fell apart. “What in god’s good name to do you think you’re _doing_?”

Adam’s tired. Of course he is. Just like everyone else in this hopeless situation. Like Sargent, he’s hardly slept. Yet _unlike_ Sargent, he’s kept his fallen daughter at arm’s length. In this time of desperation, Adam Lynch’s true colours come out, and he and his daughter share an uncanny ability to push people away when they need them most. Gansey doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Violet’s always been just as much Adam’s daughter as she’s Ronan’s.

“God, Gansey, please,” he sighs, far too tired to argue. “Not now.” He doesn’t need one more person to accuse him of causing this. No one’s put it in precise words, but he knows Gansey, and he knows he’d stick his foot in it. Gansey’s going to be the one to put words to Adam’s quiet suspicions of festering guilt.

“Yes, Adam,” Gansey counters, swinging round and pushing into his face. “Yes, now. I told you. I _told_ you if anything should happen to Violet, it would kill my children. It would _kill_ them. And I let myself think for three weeks that maybe leaving you back in Henrietta while your _husband_ rots in a strange hospital in a strange city by himself would be good for us all. That maybe leaving you here to care for your _daughter_ was the right call. But this is so far _beyond_ all of that. _You’re_ the reason Ronan’s barely breathing. _You’re_ the reason Violet went under. Because you weren’t paying close enough attention when she started slipping away from the ley lines! You’re the Magician, dammit! Why couldn’t you tell something was wrong? You’ve made such an egregious mistake and not only your daughter will pay for it, but _my children_ will too. I’ve never _seen_ them so broken!”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Adam replies, quiet as anything. There _is_ nothing to say, really. Not to something like this.

“I want you to come to Washington with me. I want you to do right by your husband for the first time in _years_ instead of holing up all lugubrious in this hellhole.”

Adam shakes his head, fervent and insisting. “No. Gansey, please. I-I can’t. I can’t face him. Not after everything he’s done.”

“What are you so _afraid_ of?”

Adam reaches up to run his fingers through his hair, tugging at the roots. He has to sit down. This conversation is too much, and he knows, deep down, he’s been dreading it since the moment Gansey decided to come home. “I’m afraid, if I go back there, go back to _him_ , I’ll be no better than my mother. She cowered, and sat back and watched in the shadows while my father beat me. And I won’t let that happen to Violet. I _won’t_.”

“So you’re willing to let Ronan die for it,” Gansey interprets, aided by a full bodied shrug. “You’d rather lose your whole family than see your dying husband in the hospital. If you stay here, you’re no better than your mother. Because you’re not just sitting back and letting your daughter suffer, you’re sitting back and letting _my_ family suffer. My children aren’t even my children anymore, Adam. I came home expecting to find hope and optimism. A miraculous ray of light over the horizon of this horrific nightmare of a situation. And now… I don’t even know who my children are anymore. I don’t recognize them… Indie, my beautiful, vivacious little girl, the happiest, sweetest kid you’ve ever met, broke down crying today while my gregarious, kindhearted son sequestered himself as he lost his mind in the middle of a forest. _God._ Adam… These aren’t my children… No parent would want this of their child. This is more than just about you and Violet. You’re just two people and this? This is tearing our family asunder. And I won’t stand by and let it happen anymore!”

Head in his hands, Adam slumps boneless into the living room easy chair, as he had the last time they had this conversation, full of accusations he didn’t deserve. But this time? This time he knows what he’s done, and how fucked up beyond recognition everything is, just because he took the easy way out. No one could have predicted this. Violet could have taken that road trip all on her own initiative, dragging Sargent along with her, and they’d still wind up right where they are now, with two bright lights on the brink of flickering out, and six family members grieving in the process.

“I can’t go, Gansey,” he repeats, utterly doused in regret. He rubs his eyes with weary hands. “Every day is another day closer to picking up the phone and hearing that my daughter’s died. I have a duty, as her father, to stay and see this through. And if there is any hope of a chance that we can save her, I want to be here for that too. Her fate may be in Ronan’s hands, but she needs me here more than he ever did. And I intend to stand by her.”

Gansey huffs out a breath, relieved at the very least to hear some noble words out of his friend’s mouth for the first time since their reunion. “Then go to her. Be with your daughter. She deserves to know you’re still here.”           

V.

Long after Adam’s gone, the younger of his broken children slinks out of the shadows where Gansey sits in his pool of dimming lamplight. He’s got a book in hand, but he’s not reading it, instead staring, blankly at the page without really looking.

“Daddy?” Indie whispers into the semi-darkness, her voice small and pixie light. She leans up against the wall, her fingers toying with the light switch to illuminate the gloom. “Daddy, I’ll go with you. I’ll go to Washington to see Ronan.”

Gansey’s head shoots up, spine ramrod straight. “No, Indie… no. That’s not… You don’t want to see that.” Ronan’s fate is not for the eyes of a little girl, whose innocence keeps her young, keeps her pure at heart, and still in love with the world. He can’t strip that from her. She’s just a _girl_. If Adam has a responsibility to protect Violet from the evils of this world, Gansey is no different with Indie. And Gansey… Gansey has a leg up where Adam doesn’t. Violet’s already been forced to grow up too fast. It’s written into her Faustian contract as a dream thing. She’s not long for this world, so long as her father remains reckless. But Indie… Indie’s as human as they come, a psychic’s daughter, and he intends to keep her innocence in tact for as long as possible.

Indie comes closer, a hesitant step, into the room. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it,” she explains. “And I’m tired, Daddy. I’m tired of watching Sargent waste away, hoping in vain that maybe today Vi will wake up. It’s been a month. A month of Maura and Calla and Jimi and Orla coming in and cleansing her aura. And Adam, negotiating with the trees. And Sargent, waiting for a miracle. But nothing’s coming. And nothing ever will. Because the thing is, the solution is not here, with Violet. We’ve tried everything we possibly can, and if it’s supposed to work, she would be awake right now. But it’s not Vi. It’s Ronan. She can’t wake up unless he’s _alive_. So we _fix_ him.”

As awe-inspiring as his daughter’s speech is, stirring that glimmer of hope Gansey has been searching for all along, it’s not enough. “It’s not that easy, sweetheart. He’s really really…” Gansey trails off, unable to articulate how bad it’s gotten. “Ronan’s in a bad way, pumpkin. And it’s going to take more than magic to bring him back. Just like it’s going to take more than magic to stop Violet from hemorrhaging.”

“But all we can do is try,” Indie insists, all determination sprung from nowhere, bouncing in the balls of her feet. “Right? Adam and Sargent… they’re not in their right minds to bring the fire power we need to save him, nor are they willing to leave Violet. But I… Daddy, I’m _incorruptible_. I’ve got _love_ at my fingertips! I could be the key to _all_ of this. Please, we have to _try_!”

And it’s this little ray of sunshine- _his_ little ray of sunshine who talks the most sense of everyone here. If anyone could do it, it’s her…

She’s right. All they can do is try…


	40. Reviving Soul Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violet's situation comes to a head. Sargent helps her through it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have another two parter on our hands! Sorry not sorry in advance for the cliffhanger. I am the actual worst. But also, please don't jump to conclusions anywhere in this chapter. There are all sorts of weird things going on and not all is as it seems... ;) Wait up for Part II if you don't handle devastating cliffies well.
> 
> Warning for (surprise!) sex scenes as well as the usual soul crushing angst... :):):)

**Sargent**

**10:25am**

Blue’s not happy about it, but after a brief reunion with her better half, she lets Gansey go. She watches, arms crossed, keeping her cardigan closed against her chest against the surprising morning chill, while he pulls his car out of the lot, taking their daughter with him. One hand raises in a wave she makes certain Indie can see through the dashboard window, but she knows she needn’t worry about their girl. This isn’t like watching Adam pull out of Monmouth, whisking his daughter off onto the open road with naught but an intention to leave and get as far, far away from torment as possible on his mind. Gansey’s not running and Indie’s not petulant, nor tied to this little town quite like Violet is. She and Gansey are free to roam, father and daughter, taking on the world together. If anyone can tackle the impossible, it’s those two.

No, Blue’s not worried. At least not about them.

She sighs, turning back into the shop and picks her steady, meandering way back up the steps to Monmouth. The route is utter autopilot, so often does she live between her concrete home she’s made for herself, her children, and her boys, and the shop she built up with her own two hands. Now, everything is fragmented, and lately, she feels like she’s the only one holding things together.

Everyone’s so fragile.

She raps on Adam’s door, as she does every morning, not expecting an answer. She has to keep up some pretenses of politeness in all of this. Otherwise, what’s the point? Adam’s been on leave since he brought Violet home. He’s only really seen her upon Gansey’s request. He spends the rest of his time moping. Sometimes in Cabeswater, sometimes just there, in this bed, as he does now, and it’s pathetic in the sense that had his superiors at the office not insisted upon his taking time to be with his daughter, he’d be drowning himself in work right now, just to distract from the ever-present sting. Adam’s never taken time to breathe in his entire life. Yet here it is, the great exhale, and it’s suffocating him.

“Adam,” she greets him carefully, as she would one of her own children on a nebulous day. He’s awake, curled up on top of the sheets, hand poised beneath his cheek, chin tucked ever so slightly inward. Every part of him is huddled, protected from the elements, as if to keep all remaining love in, never let anything out, ever again. All Blue sees is that scared seventeen year old boy, who showed up sullen to their adventures, black and blue with exhaustion and bruises he won’t put words to, not even if they asked. He’s so small and shriveled in this form, tortoise-shell equipped.

She’s come close enough to lay a hand against the knobs of his spine, raised stencil shapes jutting out against his cotton-thin t-shirt he’s worn to bed. If it’s one of Ronan’s old castaways, Blue’s not about to mention it. “Adam, it’s time to see Violet,” she reminds him, steeling herself for a violently adverse reaction, or worse, nothing at all. “This one’s important. You know how her test days are.”

Every week, the doctor comes by to give Violet a blood test. This week, they’re going one step further: back to the hospital for a fresh MRI. With any luck, the clot will be gone and they will have one less thing to worry about. Gansey and Indie will be free to concentrate their efforts on fixing Ronan and all will be rosy again soon enough. Blue’s got faith. The ladies of 300 Fox Way have a good feeling about Gansey and Indie’s trip. They say Indigo Jane is her father’s good luck charm. She’ll be the one to bring good fortune to such a nasty situation. If this road trip bodes well, Blue has no other choice than to be cautiously optimistic about Violet’s recovery. Today’s test results can only return good things. That’s her mantra for the day.

And so, she’s determined to get Adam Parrish out of bed and by her side in the waiting room while a doctor delivers the latest in Violet’s health saga. “Adam, take Violet to her check up. Let your daughter know you’re still there for her.”

Blue knows the medical visits are the worst of it for Adam and she hates to ask this of him, but watching him mope day in and day out while both his husband and daughter wither away is too much. Not when Adam has so much living to do for them all. She can’t lose him too.

She indulges him with a few muffled pessimistic comments as he wallows into his pillow for an extended moment before a whoosh of a sigh finally draws him out of bed. One distraught, browbeaten wallower down. She’s coming for Sargent next, and hopes whatever defenses he puts up doesn’t involve teeth and claws. He hasn’t been above biting if it means his assailant will leave him and Violet alone for that much longer. Her son has completely lost the plot. It’s up to Blue to bring him back from the brink. This has gone on too long.

She has to wrestle him away from Violet to let Adam carry her to the car. Far too much of her life has been wrangling men twice her weight and height. Sargent’s nothing in her hands and she calms him down with whispered words against his skin and fingers carded through his tangled nest of hair. She’s not so sure her son knows what he’s fighting for anymore, it’s all screaming and crying to no real avail, struggling against people who are on his side, who just want him to get better. After all, this isn’t his illness. This isn’t his slumber, nor his bleeding brain. And he should be the brightest of all of them. Yet where is her boy?

“Look at me. Honey. Look at me.” She smoothes the short spikes of hair Aurora’s trimmed in her quiet, busy way she does when puttering about the cottage, petting it flat against the sides of his face. Sargent’s eyes wander, unfocused, but she holds him and gives him no other choice than to snap to. “Adam’s going to take care of Violet today. Okay? You and I are going to get out of this cottage. Get you some fresh air.”

Cabeswater will set him to rights. She knows it will. Sargent’s one of its many stewards, he deserves protecting just as much as the rest of them. Especially at a time like this.

He recoils at the mention of the forest. Of course he does. Cabeswater’s played its tricks on him and he no longer knows what to trust. Not even when he’s been living within its depths for the past month. Not even then does he trust the forest’s whispers. But Blue takes his hand anyway and guides him along the beaten path nonetheless. He’s unsteady on his feet, fumbling upon first contact with dusty floors, but he catches his stride, however hesitant, however doubtful, and sees the outside world once more.

It’s been a bright spring, despite the dreary rainfall Cabeswater’s been drenched in since its granddaughter fell. It too grieves for its girl, and it does its best to lay down roots and light up this gentle creature with as much life as it can. But it’s not like a simple nick, or a burn, or even a broken bone. Cabeswater can’t heal this type of hurt. It’s going to take something bigger.

But Sargent… Sargent, it can fix.

Walking hand in hand in the forest, Sargent refuses to let go. His large hands fit awkward and clumsy in hers in only the way a clumsy teenage boy’s hands could. She remembers Gansey’s teenage hands, clandestine during night drives, where they think no one else is looking. Her son’s hand makes no show of hiding, not out here in the elements where they have nothing to hide from. She squeezes it in practiced reassurance and supposes it’s as good a time as any to launch into her latest motherly pep talk. “Darling, there’s so much more to your life beyond that cottage. Beyond that bed.” It’s much the same pep talk she’s been spoon feeding Adam, but it needs to be heard. “I hate to say it, but one day, you’re going to wake up and Violet won’t be there beside you, honey. And you’re going to have to figure out who you are with her gone.”

 “Mom…” Sargent’s voice is choked out, one of the first instances he’s actually acknowledged her presence in the past few weeks. He shakes his head, lost and forlorn. “I don’t know if that’s possible. My entire life… I’ve always known her. She’s always been there. Without her… without her, I…”

 “Without her, you’ll survive,” Blue insists, laying down the tough love she should have dolled out weeks ago. Her son is stronger than this. Blue Sargent did not raise her children to unravel at the very notion of losing love. This is unimaginable grief they’re all grappling with, of course. She can concede to that. Blue feels it too. She knows how they all _ache_ with it. But she also knows life goes on, even when the small world they know and love begins to crumble around them. “You are far more than your greatest love is worth, sweetheart. You… you have so much more going on in your life. You are going to get out of this town, face the bright lights of New York City and stand under your very own spotlight, right up on that stage one day. That’s you. With or without Violet. Okay?”

Sargent finds it impossible to imagine the point of life without Violet. Yes, there’s New York, there’s Broadway, there’s the theatre calling his name. But is it worth anything if she can’t be there to watch it all happen? Who is he doing this for, if not for her? He’s got so many big, bright dreams, out there in the world, and they feel so empty, when she’s thrust right into her own dreams, and she can’t escape.

Blue presses the back of Sargent’s hand with her free palm. “Darling, the thing you must understand is this is no easy thing. What Violet and Ronan are going through right now… they may not make it out the other side. And we have to prepare for that eventuality. You are still going to be you when she’s gone. There is none of this ceasing to exist. It’s all carrying on living, because they would want us to. And not only that, but some version of you out there, whether it’s yesterday’s you, or tomorrow’s you, whoever that person is or was, they would want you to stay.” They’ve come to a halt, not far from the forest’s edge, where Cabeswater gives way to roadway and they’re back to civilization once more.

Blue reaches up to fuss fondly with the hair falling in her son’s eyes. “My sweet boy, you have fought so valiantly for her. But don’t you dare stop because she’s losing her fight. Carry on, until there isn’t a battle to wage anymore. Don’t you dare let this consume you. Hey? Don’t you dare let this tragedy steal you away from who you are.” Her fingers curl around his shoulders and squeeze. Sargent’s body rattles hollow when she shakes him. “Fight it, sweetheart. _Fight it_.”

Sargent’s heart’s atrophied too much, lying in that bed with a girl as good as a rotting corpse within the circlet of his arms. He doesn’t know how to fight anymore. But his mother leaves him to contemplate _how_ as her cell rings and he’s too groggy to even react when Blue begins to respond to Adam’s panic-stricken voice on the other line. She soothes Adam with reassurances that they will join him at the hospital as soon as possible. Weeks before, Sargent might have pitched a fit, hanging off his mother’s arm for news on Violet’s status. But now… _nothing_. He’s been beaten into submission until he’s nothing but numb to one more call to action against Vi’s latest medical emergency.

_What’s the point?_

 

**11am**

The doctor fills Blue and Sargent in on what he’s already told Adam. Blue’s relieved to find Adam’s not chosen to run and hide after this latest blow. Instead, she finds him on the other side of the glass, sitting at his daughter’s bedside. She’s small and fragile in that crisp white bed, the mattress slightly tilted. He holds her hand in his, with a silent hope that she might squeeze back, refuting every medical test result of the day.

“She was doing really well for a while there,” the doctor explains, easing them in. Sargent’s silent at his mother’s shoulder, gaze downcast, unwilling to offer eye contact to the one person brandishing Violet’s death sentence. “For a few weeks, the medication seemed to be balancing her out. Unfortunately, the clot’s spreading. We can do all we can to slow it down, but there’s no knowing how long she has. She may have anywhere between a few hours and a few weeks.”

The rest of his words fade out in the whoosh of wind tunnel gusts through Sargent’s ears. His mother’s advice not half an hour before about carrying on without Violet push into the forefront of his mind, unbidden. This was never on the cards for them. This was _never_ an option. Violet Lynch is a fighter. She can fight her way through anything. Even this. She’ll make it. She _has_ to.

“C-can we take her home?” he manages, too caught in his own thoughts to realize he’s cut right through the grim conversation.

“She’d be better under observation,” the doctor replies, patient, despite the rude interjection. “But there’s little to be done on our end, I’m afraid. It’s never easy breaching the subject, but it might be worth discussing where she’ll be most comfortable.”

And there it is. The final nail in the coffin. Sargent’s throat squeezes around the notion until his tongue swells with it and he’s choking on it. She should be home. If there’s nothing to be done for her, she should be home, at Monmouth. Back in that bed, full of quiet moments between them, and in the earlier days, with Indie too, crowded in with Violet curled up in the middle. Sarge and Indie kept her warm and safe in that bed, pressed in on both sides, head to shoulder, palm splayed to catch her heartbeat, steady and regular under their touch. She knew love in that bed, held it in her hands, and hid her gratitude under snarky sneers and biting sarcasm. It may have been a place to witness their laziest of moments, but it also paid testament to every single ounce of the trio’s bonding with one another. Afternoons spent crafting, with a spray of technicolour construction paper, paints, and glitter. Early evenings of Violet explaining math and science with a huffed breath to her stubborn crowd of two, far too artistically inclined to understand the more logical subjects. Hours of scheming birthday parties, and Christmas gifts, and their latest venture out beyond Henrietta’s outskirts. Laughter, and love, and light, and dearest of dear company.

She belongs there. If they’re going to lose her, she deserves to fade out with dignity, in a familiar place that taught her nothing but kindness. Sargent knows the adults might vie for Cabeswater instead, to give her a fighting chance, and return her from whence she came, and they would not be wrong in the slightest. But at the end of it all, Violet Lynch is just a girl, wanting above else to live out her days as just that. She never asked to be a dream, she never asked to be ethereal, magical, beautiful. All she wanted was a normal life with her friends and family who loved her. And Cabeswater can’t give her that. Not when it can’t even bring her back from the brink of death. She’s past redeeming.

Sargent knows now. He won’t budge on this. He knows her better than anyone else. He knows where she belongs. “Bring her home.”

 

**2pm**

She’s home. Not back in the cottage in Cabeswater, but at Monmouth. Sargent makes a quick call to Indie, who appears to be cross-legged in the middle of a forest somewhere. She’s so surprised to find her brother, lucid and vocal, her first instinct is to assume he bears good news. But her relieved grin slides off her face over the video chat as Sarge explains the situation.

“ _No_ ,” she insists with a violent shake of her head. “No, Sarge. We’ll fix it. Daddy and I are going to Washington to fix it. We’re going to fix Ronan and we’re going to fix Violet.”

Sargent’s voice comes out in a small, puppy whine. “I don’t think we can, Indie. She doesn’t have much time.”

Indie’s sick of everyone’s pessimism, most of all, Sargent’s. This isn’t who Sargent is. Sargent Gansey doesn’t just give up like this. “Look, Sargent, listen to me. Dad and I have a lead on something. We have a really good feeling about it. Just… trust me. We’re going to fix this. It’s going to be okay. Don’t you dare say goodbye to her yet.”

 His baby sister’s unerring optimism is endearing as ever, but just like most emergency situations lately, she’s not here. She doesn’t know. Violet’s beyond saving magically. A simple spell or awakening her father may not be enough anymore. He lets Indie go with a sigh and considers.

**4pm**

There is so much Sarge has left to say, and not much time left to say it. He expected to have the rest of eternity with this beautiful girl. Yet here he is, sitting cross-legged on the enormous bed they’ve shared their entire lives, watching her inert form, with nothing but the rise and fall of her chest to keep him steady. So long as she’s still breathing, she’s still with him.

He heaves another sigh, pressing his phone to his chin once before tossing it to the end of the bed, forgotten, to curl up, sentinel beside his fading love. His fingers fall into her hair, brushing curls back away from her face. A kiss presses to her temple and he lingers there, soaking up the remaining warmth of her, so close, yet so far away. “Thank you,” he breathes against her brow. “For everything. You have given me so much in the past sixteen years. I can’t even imagine who I would’ve been, and what I would’ve done without you. You’re my best friend and I couldn’t have asked for a better companion to share my life with.

“You are so much more than you ever thought of yourself. And I know you hate being reminded of how amazing you are, but it’s true. You’ve taught me so many things over the years, Violet Lynch. You taught me bravery. And honour. And how to be true to myself. And to fight for what I believe in. You brought me love, and made me see just what I was missing after being so clueless for so long. The thing is, I love you. I love you more than words can even express. And I know I’ve _always_ loved you, even if it took me a while to figure it out. I say it a lot, and I won’t stop saying it, even after you… you’re gone. But it’s because the world deserves to hear it; hear how much you are loved. How much you are wanted, even on the worst of days, when it feels like no one else is on your side. I was on your side, Violet. I was _always_ on your side.

“I wish we had longer together, my stunning blossom of a girl. We were meant for more. We were supposed to get out, and see the world together. I would’ve married you in a heartbeat. We could’ve had a nice, small wedding, at the Barns, where every trouble you've ever faced would be fixed by then. And your parents finally resolved their issues and I could promise you _everything_. We’d finally be Legs and Stretch against the world, just as we’ve always said. And maybe… maybe if after a while, you wanted… we’d have kids. I’d teach our children to sing and you’d… I don’t know, teach them to be fierce, and fight back, and teach them math and science, and to be tender to the plants and animals of the world. You’d be a protective mother, prepared to kill anyone who stood in the way of your babies. Most of all, we’d be happy together. Just like you always wanted. We’d chase dreams of Broadway together, and I’d help you find your own dream. Maybe we’d have a few cats. You’ve always liked cats. You’d show up to dinner parties sometimes, and find yourself a quiet corner away from the gathering, and they’d come right to you, a kindred spirit.

“God, I hope wherever you’re going, you’ll find kindred spirits. I hope there’s something beyond this life. And when you fade out, it won’t be to eternal darkness. It’ll be to light, and all those things that bring you joy. Maybe one day, when I’m ready, I’ll join you, and we’ll be together again. But right now…” Sargent shakes his head. “Right now, you’re fighting a losing battle and I can’t… I can’t follow where you go. So please, Violet. Go bravely into the light. Be fearless and face death like you’ve faced everything else in life: with determination and strength. And know that I love you. I love you I love you I love you.”

He takes up her hand, and kisses her knuckles, each in quick succession, soaking her fingers with salty tears. She lies on her back, her fingers slack in his, but something different plays across her face. A furrow dipping her brow, a quiet little mewl from barely parted lips.

Sargent sucks in a breath, heart racing with the first cue of life from this doomed girl. “Violet?” his voice is frantic with disbelief at his luck. That little mewl sounds again and she practically _shifts_ against him. He raises her fingers to his mouth again, pressing her knuckles hard against his lips. “Vi, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand.” His free hand reaches out to soothe her hair out of her eyes. “Come on. You can do it. Squeeze my hand. You’re _so_ close. Come on, Legs. Come on. _Please_.”

The furrow in her brow deepens and mewl turns into a fumbling word. “Sarge?” There he is. He’s on her lips and his heart dances with the relief of it. He’s never heard a more beautiful sound in his life. “Sarge… where are you? I can’t… I can’t find you.”

“I’m right here, sweetheart,” he chokes out, tears falling afresh, this time, with something akin to respite. “Violet, I’m right here.”

But she can’t find him, and her body thrashes, caught in a nightmare of burning fields, barren of life, barren of stars above, and she’s _alone_. Has been for weeks, despite the fact that Sargent’s there, and has _been_ there all along. The fire swallows her up, the ash choking in her throat, until she’s nothing but ash herself, swept up and caught in an urn, that might sit on her father’s mantle at the Barns. Maybe they’ll cry for her, and their great loss of this beautiful dream of a girl they just couldn’t keep.

Sargent holds her close and peppers her with kisses, making himself as present in this bed with her as he possibly can. But she’s still lost lost lost, and he’s nowhere nowhere nowhere in her mind. “You’re okay,” he insists, squeezing her hand and pressing another kiss to her brow. “Honey, you’re just fine. Just… open your eyes. You’re almost there. Open your eyes, love. _Open your eyes_.”

And miraculously, gradually, like the first blossom in morning dew, she does. It’s a careful mechanism, like she’s not sure she remembers how to do it, but her long, gold lashes flutter against her cheek and there she is, all baby blue and _perfect_ in his hands. She’s uncertain, utterly disoriented and unfocused as she reaches for him with an unsteady gaze. Though she’s still so lost and befuddled in her current waking state, Sargent can’t help but sweep down again and rain kisses down all over her face, wherever he can reach, punctuated with choked sobs of _omigod, I didn’t think… I thought for sure… We all thought… You were dead, Violet Lynch. You were on death’s door. Oh my god. Violet…_

Violet remains limp in his arms, still struggling to comprehend what’s happened to her. “S-Sarge?” she tries, her hands reaching up for the collar of his shirt. Her fists catch on the fabric, pulling him impossibly close. He doesn’t mind. Not one bit. Not when he has her, _finally_ has her, back in the land of the living.

“Yes. _Yes_ , my darling girl!” His hands cup her face and she’s too dazed to return the kiss when his lips land on hers.

“I-I couldn’t find you,” she splutters, tearful between kisses she’s not quite ready to return yet. “You were nowhere. I was so _scared_.”

“I know,” he replies, pulling her into his arms and just holding her, hands rucking against her shoulder blades. “I know, sweetheart. But you’re here, and you’re okay. And I’ll never leave you.”

A breath escapes her, a whoosh of every demon that she’s let in since she fell. Out they go with that single exhale and she’s so young, and pure, and here, so very very here, not going anywhere anymore, ever again. Not without him, unless she chooses to wander off on her own volition.

 “Sarge?” Her brow furrows once more, her fingers tightening around his shirt. She glances up at him from her position, buried in the hollow of his throat. “Am I awake?”

“God… yes. _Yes_ , you’re awake,” Sarge chokes out a laugh, so unbelievable that he’s here, and they’re here. And she’s alive, and alert and so very very awake. “You are so blessedly awake.”

A sound escapes her, halfway between a gasp and a bleat and she clings to him, face nuzzled into his neck. Sarge is in no hurry. He’ll let her acclimatize as much as she needs. And he does. They lie there, together, just reveling in this moment, the two of them, reunited at last and their hearts _pound_ with it.

Finally, _finally_ , Violet maneuvers herself, careful as anything, to kiss him. And it’s as if nothing’s ever changed between them. As if an entire month hasn’t befallen them, tearing them apart, and threatening Vi’s early release from this world. But life’s not done with her yet.

Sargent’s forgotten how steady she is, how certain, how determined when it comes to showcasing every last feeling she has for him. Words are never enough, and she speaks with her body and it calls out to him, even now, after so long a respite. Miraculously, it still remembers what to do, and she kisses him within an inch of his life, suctioned to him like a mollusk at low tide. Their ecosystem nearly shook apart, one without the other. She won’t let him go this time. So she keeps her mouth, just there, just so, pressed to him in every desperate way imaginable.

And Sargent finds, for the first time, that he wants something he’s never wanted before. She crawls into his lap and he _wants_ this. Her fingers slide, a little cold, up his back, beneath his shirt, and he wants this too. He sucks in a deep breath and tests himself, asking without a single word, for permission to peel her shirt away from her warm body.

Violet, bold as ever, wants this just as much. His mouth catches on the column of her throat as her fingers, surprisingly deft after such a long, long slumber, undo the button of his jeans. He slinks out of them, shaking but sure, more sure than he’s ever been, while she unclasps the hooks of her bra, utterly blind, with fingers, pulled acrobatic taut behind her back. She is utterly mesmerizing, her skin cool in the lamplight, dotted with a fine dusting of freckles. And this- this is beautiful like he never imagined before. He can’t explain it, nor can he slow down long enough to ponder it properly, lest he scare easy and change his mind.

Violet seems to know what she’s doing as she peels his shirt from him; his last article of clothing, and he’s never been this naked with her before. Not since bath time at five years old. But this is a different thing entirely and it feels big - _huge_ between them. He always worried he’d fumble through this – their first time. That he’d be embarrassed, and she’d have to talk him down. But she’s careful, and her blue eyes gleam with questions before she touches him properly. He kisses her in response, sure this time, and won’t let no be his answer. His fingers curl around hers, allowing them to close home around their prize. She lets out a little sigh and sets off, making certain he’s good and ready before stage two takes him utterly by surprise.

Sargent barely breathes. Not through her steady hands, nor through the gentle release of fingers, leaving him bereft for a painstaking moment before she leans in close, lips caught against his and she’s… she’s _there_. She’s there, and she’s warm (too warm) and he’s… god… he’s…

He’s glad her mouth keeps him quiet because she’s _everywhere_ and he almost screams with just _how_ everywhere she is. Something guttural escapes her while she carries on her plunge. Violet’s a girl who would go a mile a minute, but she takes it slow, if not for her own lethargy, then for Sargent’s hesitancy. But they’re here now, and her teeth nip into the juncture of his neck and her thighs press tight around his legs, and god, is she ever _mystifying_.

He’s not sure where to put his hands in this situation, so his arms wend around her waist and he holds her closer still as they move in steady tandem, as they always have. This is simply different, a place they’ve never gone before as friends _or_ lovers. Her curls tickle his face, a golden wreath of a whirling halo around her head.

He doesn’t know how, but they somehow tumble until Violet’s beneath him and his hips seem to roll on their own volition, a natural response to her own thrust. Her feet tangle around his back and he’s dizzy with all of _this_.

“Sarge…” she’s breathy in his hands as he moves with her, but there’s something else going on here that Sargent can’t quite see.

Violet’s vision reels, dissociating her from the moment in its entirety until all is black, and she comes to, toppled end over end into her barren field once more. She blinks, taking in the desolation, the ash heavy in her lungs as it clings to the air like thick snowflakes. The sky is inky and empty above her, not a star, not a moon, not even the sun. Nothing. Just a dark, dark canvas with not a thing to guide her way. “Sargent?” she calls out for him, panicked. He was _here_ , just here. Just one moment ago. The phantom flames lick her skin and she’s hot hot, burning up and how did she get here? _God_ …

Something grabs hold of her, something unearthly, and ridged with scales or feathers or… Violet’s not so sure. All she knows is it’s got her by the waist and it pulls her down into the fiery pit of brimstone below. “ _Sargent_!” she screams, in desperate hope that he’ll find her, now that they’ve made some connection in this desolate wasteland. She flails, leg over wrist, but she can’t make contact with whatever has her. “No. No! Let me go! _Let me go_!”

Somewhere between miles and seconds away, Sargent Gansey heaves himself up with a start from a fitful slumber. His breath rattles out of him, the vision of Violet’s nightmarish dance with the devil still seared on his brain, as real as if he’d _lived_ it. He’s drenched with sweat, right through his shirt, and sticking his hair to his forehead.

Beside him, a body thrashes, utterly drained of sound. He turns, heart still pounding from the nightmare, only to find Violet, twisting in on herself in the thrall of a violent convulsion, wracking her entire body. “ _No_ ,” he chokes, fumbling into a seated position, so he might pull her into his lap. “ _No_. Violet…” She shakes, every single nerve vibrating in her utter unconsciousness. “Violet, please, no.”

Her lids fall half-open, her eyes rolled to the back of her head. Beneath her, Sargent wishes against all else he can wake up from this nightmare. That this- _this_ is the dream, and his mind hadn’t utterly fabricated her joyous return to life. He curses his own subconscious for the betrayal and holds her through it, until finally, Violet Lynch falls limp in his arms.

An anguished cry rips from him and he bestows one last, desperate kiss to her cold temple.


	41. Reviving Soul Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Indie and Gansey hit the road, on a mission to save Ronan's life. They uncover something along the way that just might solve their problems...

**Indie**

**9:45am**

Blue’s worried as she buttons up Gansey’s coat and slings a backpack over his shoulder, an almost perfect throwback to a month previously, when her test subject was Adam Parrish, and the experiment ended badly. If it takes a road trip to take back the consequences of a road trip, then so be it. Blue just hopes they’re not making the same mistake again, driving right into the jaws of the beast.

_Indie is not Violet. Indie is not Violet. Indie is not Violet!_ Blue has to repeat it to herself like a safeguard, to remind herself of how different their girls are. Violet’s all melancholic skepticism and destruction; a war path. Indie’s sanguine optimism and sunshine; a good luck totem. She’s got this. If anyone’s got this, it’s her.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asks her better half one final time. She frets, as any concerned mother would, but she knows there’s no holding the pair of them back. They’re going to go no matter what sense she talks to them. “Is it wise letting our daughter see Ronan like this?”

Gansey sighs, knowing just as well they have no other choice. “It’s the wisest option we have at the moment. It’s this or nothing, Jane. What more have we to lose?”

Blue could lose them both. She’s already halfway to losing Adam and Sargent. Who’s to say she won’t lose her partner and daughter too? If she loses them all… what does she have left?

“Just… take care of her.” It sounds silly, this helpless request. Silly and redundant. Of course father will take care of daughter. Or rather, as she watches Indie fall in line beside Gansey, sparkly backpack full of clothes and necessities for their trip in tow, more accurately, _daughter_ will take care of _father_.

God, she’s far too young for all of this. Blue wishes she could shield their girl from the evils of the world forever. But she can’t and reality becomes them. Not everything is a candy coated dream. The clouds must roll in sometime, leaving rain to dissolve all that sugar into crystalline puddles on glistening tarmac.

“Indigo,” she addresses her daughter, tipping her chin upward with a tick of her forefinger. “Look out for your father. Make sure he behaves himself. Don’t let him get too nerdy and make too big of a fool of himself.”

“ _Mooooom_ , we’re going to see a dying friend in the hospital, not to the Smithsonian…!” Indie replies, her brand of sarcasm much breezier than Violet’s sharp edge. She leans in to buss her mother’s cheek nonetheless, a gentle, kindly reminder that everything will turn out fine. “We’ll save Ronan, Mom. Ronan and Violet both. We won’t give them up without a fight.”

Gansey clears his throat from beside her, grim fatherly grimace set tight across his face. “Talk to Sargent. I can’t stand the sight of him wasting away like that.” He gives a full-bodied shudder to showcase his concern.

Blue nods, certain. Sargent’s like a human spring; a jack-in-the-box. Bounces right back after the worst of situations. He and Indie both. Only difference is, Indie passes through even the most dire of tragedies utterly unscathed, with a smile on her face. Sargent’s never had reason to feel this way. And he’s drowning in the newfound sensation. Depression is as good a numbing agent as coma itself. He may as well be the second sleeper in Aurora’s bed, he’s so lost and empty without the love of his life.

She’s going to let them go. She’s going to let them go because it’s the right thing to do. The ladies of 300 Fox Way have quietly nudged them in this direction. It’s the only option they’ve approved of with some magnitude. More importantly: they think it’ll work.

More than anything, Blue wishes she could come with them. The road calls and a little change in scenery would do them _all_ some good. But Adam and Sargent are not in the right place to hold down the fort on their own. They’re hurting too much in all of this and they need her here.

So she’s letting them go.

 

**10am**

It’s still an early hour down in the shop. Mornings never deter the older shoppers from wandering in first thing. Blue has multitudes of regulars that stop in week in and week out. Indie recognizes a handful of them from various places during her gallivants around town. She’s helped so many people during her small little life, everyone kind of blurs together after a while. But she never forgets a face, nor the hearts she’s touched to match. Each and every person leaves a heart’s imprint on her soul, making her more and more into the person she is today. All that potential, built up by everyone else she’s ever interacted with.

“Indigo Jane, my darling,” a blue-haired elderly lady greets her extravagantly as she descends into the shop from the first floor, Gansey close at her heels. Her shawl is sewn with glittering sequins and gold hoop earrings peek out from beneath her curls cut short into a granny’s bob. There’s something austere about her, austere and glamorous, in the dramatic sense. She’s flashy and fabulous, like she’s just the sort of woman to strike a pose in a feather boa and heels.

“Hello Mrs. Gellman,” Indie greets her pleasantly, turning on her most polite Southern granddaughter’s charm.

“Oh please,” Mrs. Gellman waves a well-manicured hand to dismiss her married name. Her fingers glitter with chunky rings. “Darling, call me Gilda.” She’s looking about expectantly, half a foot above Indie’s head, as if searching for someone. Indie half-turns, following her line of sight. Gilda Gellman comes up empty-handed. Her face falls with disappointment. “Sweetness, now where is that brother of yours? He hasn’t been down to see us in weeks!”

Indie can’t help but laugh now, put at ease. She remembers where she’s met Mrs. Gellman- Gilda. She’s one of the residents at the local retirement home. It’s part Indie’s fault Sarge got suckered into volunteering there one week, back many moons ago. There are few things Indie understands about her power, but one thing she does know for certain is to follow where it leads. And that day, it led her to the geriatric home to speak gentle words to aging men and women long abandoned by their children and grandchildren, left there under someone else’s care. Sarge just happened to tag along. She’d wandered off to the bathroom for five minutes and when next she returned, it was to her overly dramatic brother tinkering away at a piano, addressing the sitting room in his sweeping voice and borrowed lyrics from Frank Sinatra.

The audience _loved_ him. He breathed life into the place like never before. The old ladies _still_ can’t quite get enough. Indie knows full well some of these ladies wander into the shop with the express interest of checking in on their favourite Broadway star.

“Oh… Mrs. G- ah- Gilda.” She winces. “Sargent’s girlfriend’s been sick. Really really sick and he’s been taking care of her for the past month now.”

Mrs. Gellman presses a gilded hand to her heart. “His _girlfriend_? Honey, I am not surprised. If I was eighteen again, I’d snap him up in a second.”

“It’s the pouty one, isn’t it?” a second elderly woman with a striking resemblance to Liza Minnelli asks from an aisle over. Gilda’s clearly brought backup. “The one with the hair?”

Indie concedes with another laugh. “Yes. The one with the hair. She’s not doing well, I’m afraid. But he’s been a good sport about it.”

“As I’m sure he has,” Gilda confirms with a concise nod like she believes her sincerely. There is very little Sarge could do to disappoint these ladies. He shines far too brightly in their eyes. “That boy works far too hard. I hope she deserves him.”

“Oh, she does,” Indie insists, heart beginning to sink at the reminder of just how much Violet very much does. “Believe me, she does.”

“Well you just make sure he comes home to us with a fresh Fred Astaire routine soon.” Gilda winks. She gives one last inhalation, her fingers to her bosom curling around the pearl necklace at her throat. She startles, as if remembering something important. “Oh! Before I forget…” She peels the necklace from over her head and hands it over without a single preamble. “I meant to give him this. There’s so much more where that came from too. The girls and I have a trunk full of old dresses we have a feeling he would _love_.”

Indie nearly chokes with something caught between horror and glee. Sarge. And vintage clothes. When he comes out of his funk, and they fix Violet, he’s going to plotz. She accepts the generous gift on his behalf, letting the beads swing harmlessly from her palm. Give him _something_ to look forward to…

“If he’s got a trusty Ginger Rogers in one of you ladies, I’m sure he’ll be enticed back in no time,” Indie teases right back, though the reminder of how far her brother has stumbled chokes in her throat. Suddenly, the burden of what they’re about to do seeps back into her and weighs her down. She’s _exhausted_ with it and can’t dread this trip more. But her love-tracking heart buzzes with its usual alert all the same. She sighs.

“Esther, you might want to take a peek at the perfume this time,” she suggests to Gilda’s equally fashionable friend. Esther glances back, as delighted as if Indie’s offered to give her a free palm reading and she’s just given her a sunny forecast on her horizon. Perhaps she _has_. “It may just bring you the luck you’ve been waiting for.”

Esther and Gilda aren’t the ones in need of luck right now.

There’s plenty more where that came from. Indie can only hope she and Gansey can snatch some of it while they still can…

God knows they’re going to need it.

 

**10:25am**

After being waylaid by several chatty customers all looking for a hint of psychic future-readings from Indie, they set off. It’s not exactly a good feeling, setting in Gansey’s chest as he sets his eye on the road and curls his fingers around the steering wheel. Yet, it’s a quest feeling. The feeling like they’re off to conquer something, like days of old. He’s setting off to make things right, let the magic sweep over them and fix what has been wronged. He and his daughter both. Had someone told him twenty years ago, he would be here, now, in this car with a ray of sunshine he and Blue created in the passenger seat, he would never have believed them. Why joke about something he can’t have? Yet he does have it, and he intends on keeping it, for as long as he possibly can.

His relationship with Indie is very different from the one Adam and Ronan share with Violet. Indie’s more open, delighting in company of any shape and size, and willing to talk about anything and everything. Violet’s always been difficult, conversation is hard or biting with her. With Ronan, they’re sharp and bounce off each other in a sarcastic sort of way. Sometimes Adam joins in and the three of them are off in their own little world, all cynicism and sneers. After all these years, Gansey can’t say he understands it. The Gansey-Sargents and Lynches have very different outlooks on life. Sunshine and rain, interchangeable. Two sides of the same coin. But now the clouds have rolled in over their family’s rays while the maelstrom has swallowed the Lynches up.

Gansey can only hope there’s a rainbow on the other side of this trip when the sky finally clears.

“So,” he starts, after a comfortable silence ushers them out of Henrietta’s town limits. “What’s going on with Sargent?”

It’s the last question Indie expected out of her father’s mouth, what with everything going on lately. “What’s _not_ going on with Sargent?” she knocks back, uncertain which direct he’s going with this. “The _he’s in love with Violet_ thing, or the _Violet’s sick_ thing…”

Gansey swallows thickly. “How about the _wearing his girlfriend’s clothes_ thing?” He loves his son, for all his strange quirks and hobbies, but this one’s the most bizarre. What does it mean for who his son’s supposed to be?

Indie lets out a short, clipped laugh. “He’s figuring himself out, Dad. It’s good for him.”

“And what exactly has he figured out?” It’s not exactly new, Sargent borrowing the girls’ clothes. He’s been doing it practically his whole life. It’s second nature to him at this point. But it still doesn’t explain _why_ , why he feels so at home in clothes not his own.

His daughter sighs, turning to look at him, prepared for an earnest conversation. From her position curled up in the passenger’s seat, mint-coloured converses pressed against the edge, she’s a small fountain of knowledge. “It’s not my place to out my own brother or anything, Daddy. He’ll tell you about himself when he’s good and ready. But let’s just say, there’s such a thing as non-binary.” She slumps back against the back of her seat, signifying the end of her explanation.

_Non-binary._ What does this _mean_? Gansey fumbles through this new word, stumped. It feels heavy, like a diagnosis. Like Ronan’s fluid-filled lungs and Violet’s blood clot. Is it terminal? “So he’s…”

“…not really all that concerned about gender,” Indie finishes for him, wrinkling her nose. “That’s all it is, Daddy. He may be a mess about everything else going on in his life right now. But about this? He’s totally fine.”

Gansey’s not totally convinced, but he knows to trust his daughter’s words. She knows a thing or two about being fine. He’s trusting her with this mission, is he not? “And what about you?” he wonders. And it’s the first time he’s really gotten a good look at his daughter and her shining little life under a microscope like this. She’s always such an energetic little blur, hard to catch in the light and difficult to pin down long enough to check if she truly is alright. Is her absence Indie chasing her bliss, or is it avoidance of a heavy truth? They have three hours ahead of them… he may as well ask while he’s got her. “You’re still seeing ah…”

“Sam?” Indie offers. He notes the way her inflection doesn’t quite go up in that excited way it does when she usually talks about the people in her life. “Yeah, Sam’s good. They’re _great_ with Sarge…” She shakes her head, her perpetually smiling mouth ticked downward in an unnatural shape.

“Why do I get the sense that that bothers you?”

Indie curls her arms around her knees, hugging them closer to her. The seatbelt cinches a little too tight around her midriff as she presses her cheeks to the top of her knees. “It doesn’t. I just…” She bites her lip, her eyes wide, a pooling chocolate fountain of youth. “…I love her too.”

Gansey nearly swerves on the road. He’s lucky it’s a slow traffic day. “Who?” he inquires innocently, unwilling to jump to any unnecessary conclusions. Indie’s speaking far too softly for this to be easy for her to admit.

“Vi,” she admits, just a breath off her tongue. Just as soft. It’s like a gentle breeze has wafted in through a crack in his daughter’s window. A single syllable drifting straight through them, like a soul to soul heart’s core. This is honesty. This is truth like he’s never heard it in his daughter’s lips. _Vi._

“Well, I know you love her, sweetheart.” He treads carefully, in case he’s got the complete wrong end of the stick. “We _all_ do.”

“ _Dad_ ,” she huffs, self-conscious. Love doesn’t crawl under her skin like this; make her doubt herself. It doesn’t feel bothersome on her shoulders, nor does it weigh heavy like a cartoon piano dropped from a great height. Love is as natural as breathing for Indigo Jane Sargent and it shocks him that this one makes her falter.

“Oh,” he says, like it punctuates everything he needs to express. He doesn’t know what he can possibly say to fix this hole in his daughter’s heart. There’s little he _can_ do, when the object of her affections is on death’s door, and in love with her brother besides. He knows a thing or two about doomed love. And this is it. “It’s possible to survive, you know. Without it. It may not seem like it, but it’s possible.” Little does he know, his better half is giving the very same speech to their son, now miles behind them. The only difference is, Indie may just be a quicker study. “She will always love you for how fiercely you love _her_.”

“That’s only if we can save her.” Indie hugs herself a little tighter, pressing her cheek to her knees. “Daddy, does it always hurt this much?”

Gansey knows this feeling. He _knows_ it as strongly as if he experienced it yesterday. The stakes were different for him and Blue, of course. But as he thinks back on it now, they’re not as different as they seem. In each situation, a dying loved one. And nothing to be done. Gansey was granted a second chance. They can only hope Violet will receive the same miracle. “Some days are going to be worse than others, sweet pea. Some days, you’ll be okay. Dare I say, those days will be easy. Maybe you’ll even be able to forget for at least a little while. But others, it’ll hurt. And you’ll long for something you can’t have. And you just have to pull through. Hope that Violet will make it. And when she does, remember what you have with her and keep it close to your heart. Never let that go, my dear little pudding morsel. It may not be the love you want from her, but you already have her. And you don’t throw that kind of love away easy. Because you may never find something as special as you have with Violet with anyone else in this life. So you cherish her for everything she’s worth.”

He passes her a thin smile. He hopes she knows how much he believes in her. He hopes she knows how much this means to him; to this family that she’s here, and doing this. Being so, _so_ brave. She’s always been his brave, brave girl. She holds everything together, the glue that mends the cracks in the walls of their crumbling foundation; that hidden key that unlocks a universe of possibilities to them all.

But she’s no good to him downtrodden. He reaches for the dial on the radio, turning on the cd player. A boisterous female shout rings out over the speakers. Indie’s pout quirks into a fledgling grin. She remembers. Cast back into a time of family road trips, where she, Sargent, and Violet would pull together mix cds and sing loudly with the windows rolled down. Where Sarge would sing, melodic and beautiful into the crisp air, while Violet growled with every ounce of bite she had, with every attempt to make herself sound ugly, and mask the sweet gentle tone of her voice. This song, though… This song is all sass, placed first on the list by a cheeky little Indigo Jane, whose infatuation with the Spice Girls knew no bounds and permeated into her two companions.

Even after all these years, Gansey still doesn’t know all the words. But Indie does, and she cracks a beaming smile, belting right over his botched words in her off-key way of not caring precisely who hears her. With every word, she remembers Halloweens, gallivanting into the rapacious night as Posh, Baby, and Scary Spice apiece. Sarge, over-exaggerating his every move. Completely in character. As always. Violet, wishing she could be in an (ironically) scarier costume more befitting of the ghoulish holiday she holds so dear. Gansey mimics Sargent’s well-rehearsed inflections to the song perfectly, with one-handed gestures to match.

Indie laughs.

The sky clears.

Hope reigns.

 

**1pm**

           

I.

They’re two hours from Washington. Although they have a task at hand, Gansey’s keen to preserve the pure, unadulterated innocence that comes with his daughter’s youth for that much longer. Violet’s stagnant, Ronan’s not going anywhere. They can afford a small detour.

He pulls into a rest stop, a clearing of trees detouring from their mapping of road signs. Forests are always going to call to him. A little piece of him calls back, no matter where he is, or which trees stretch above, looming over him with branches, reaching out like an extended handshake imprint. His hand sneaks out his window, palm up, accepting the gentle swaying greeting.

_Hello again, my dear friend._

“Daddy, what-“ Indie twists in her seat, craning her neck to catch sight of the road, diminishing behind them. The sudden detour has distracted her from her intricate hair braiding, the three knotting segments slipping away from her fingers and unraveling.

“Just… trust me.”

Gansey doesn’t remember the last time he’s felt this at peace. Everything has been so manic lately… He closes his eyes and feels the breeze on his face as leafy foliage swipes past his open palm. They’re going at a crawl, now that they’ve left civilization and entered the forest’s edge, but it’s calm, and steady, like a heartbeat.

Time always seems to stop when nature ordains it. And at this moment, nature ordains. Gansey’s enticed to listen. What does it say? He hopes his clairvoyant girl can tell him.

“Your mother packed us lunch,” he reminds her, nudging his chin toward the cooler hefted into the backseat and buckled in like a well-protected child. “How about a picnic?”

Indie raises a brow. “Daddy, we’re kind of on a rescue mission here. Don’t you think we should…”

“What’s your sixth sense telling you, Indigo?” She’s been fighting it lately. It’s been failing her. It’s a marvel she’s even approached him with this madcap adventure of theirs. Too many days and nights of magic being no good, for anyone, has lost her her faith. But she took a leap when she offered to take Adam’s place on this trip. It’s high time she started making good on it. She _knows_ what it’s telling her.

“ _Excelsior_.”

She unclicks herself from her seatbelt and clambering out of the car when it rolls to a tranquil stop. Gansey stares after her as she goes, struck, for the first time in years, at how strikingly like him she is. Most days, she’s all Blue, all 300 Fox Way, all psychic, kinetic energy, bounding around this town. She’s pocket-sized like her mother. Quick-witted like her mother. Unflinchingly kind like her mother. Wise beyond her years like her mother. Steadfast and determined. Just like her mother. But here, she’s _Gansey_. All Gansey, setting off on a quest. Setting off to save a life, with nothing but intuition and hope to guide her way.

“God, look at you, you marvelous thing,” he gasps out, soft and fond, just… overfull to brimming with adoration for this girl. This girl who is _his_. His own creation, fostered out of the purest forms of love. He made this brilliant creature. This must be how Ronan feels, every time he pulls something of such grand, spectacular beauty out of his head. He pulled his own _daughter_ out of his head. And now, Gansey considers, bringing Indie into the world isn’t so different after all.

She’s a gleaming piece of the forest too, immersing herself ever further as the thicket swallows her up, honey and lemon, brambles and thorns. Sunlight slips through the boughs above, dappling her descent into the forest, shining like the bright dimples bookmarking her laughing mouth.

He follows her tinkling laughter deeper into the forest, picnic lunch in hand.

It’s a good day to be alive.

 

II.

           

This is no Cabeswater, Gansey knows for certain, and yet, it’s as if they’ve never escaped Henrietta, as if the enchanted forest followed them here. It’s tucked up beneath their ribcages, split twofold apiece. One precious spark of light each.

           

The trees whisper.

Indie listens.

Gansey waits.

           

“Daddy…” Indie starts, standing front and center in her little clearing. The sun beams spotlight down on her as she puzzles out the forest’s language on her mossy stage. “Is Ronan…” Her brow furrows, a face scrunched concentration on whispered words coursing right through her. “Could he be… dreaming?”

Gansey’s heart skips a beat. His breath steals from him. _Could it be…?_ “W-why d’you say that?”

But it’s the here and now of it all, that he realizes she has something cupped between her hands. She takes several crunching steps toward him. And releases her teeny tiny captive from its cage. And there, dancing on her palm, is an impossible orb of light. And inside that orb of light…

A flickering, minute bundle of human-shaped atoms, wings unfolded across its back and fluttering with a miniscule buzz. “ _Fay_ ,” Gansey gasps, blustered. His daughter, his forest nymph of a daughter, holds a _fairy_ in her hands. The little glimmering creature pushes up, barefoot, off the heel of Indie’s palm, wings quivering to greet him. _Hello, sir._ She hovers there, at eye level. Gansey’s hands raise up, absent with disbelief, to receive her. A regular Tinkerbell…

“What’s she been saying to you?” he asks, in awe as the little thing simpers, demure in his hands. He squints down at her and upon closer inspection, he can tell now why Indie would come to the conclusion she has.

The fantastical creature looks like Aurora. No… She looks like _Violet_.

“What we’ve suspected all along,” Indie breathes, voice catching with overwhelming emotion. She feels it too. “That there’s hope.”

 

**1:30pm**

 

Lunch is a quiet affair, full of new theories and grand plots to save the world, one person at a time. Gansey watches his daughter with deep affection as she weaves a flower crown beside him, her brow furrowed with deep concentration. A project of _utmost importance_. And rightfully so, as she ties off the completed chain and lifts it to bestow it upon her father’s head. They both beam. Gansey reaches out to squeeze her hand, a silent thank you for being the most delightful daughter a man could ever dream of.

A squirrel skitters toward their blanket, bold as anything, begging for a scrap from Indie’s trail mix. She holds a peanut between her fingers, arm outstretched. Gansey watches, rapt, as the little animal comes right to her, grabbing its gift between deft paws. Birds sing above them, the most colourfully feathered of them all occasionally settling on their picnic blanket, head cocked and chirping pleasantly at their newly arrived friend. Indie tugs a twining braid over her shoulder and lowers her palm, elevator trajectory, a gentle invitation for her little bird companion. The curious little thing _chips_ at her and with a furtive blink of its dark beady eye, it puffs its feathers once in the sunlight and hops on.

Indie lets out a astonished little laugh, admiring the bird in the palm of her hand. This family has always been so comfortable with birds. It’s no surprise his raven princess has inherited that ease.

The animals _love_ her.

There’s a finch nestled in her hair, tucking small twigs and blades of grass into the weave of her braids, and a sparrow perched on her shoulder: a safe vantage point to observe as a larger beast wanders into the clearing from behind the underbrush.

A deer, spotted with its youth, and tentative in its advances, raises its head to acknowledge her. Gansey’s never known a cloven animal to be skittish, but then again, the cloven animals he’s come into contact with have been Ronan’s, either by creation or inheritance. He’s contemplating how different Washington’s deer are to the benign Virginia creatures when it too makes its approach.

Still peppered with feathered friends, Indie does not move. She does not breathe, she does not say a word, lest she break the spell and send the trepid animal bolting. The youngling bends its head down low, a deferential show of respect for its queen. Its pussy willow soft tail twitches as she reaches out to carefully, carefully, carefully sweep gentle fingers from forehead to muzzle. The creature lets out a little huff, breath warm against her hand. The sparrow fluffs up on her shoulder, but does not disrupt the scene. The squirrels come down from their high point in the trees, curious. Two more deer slip inconspicuously into the grove, a buck and a doe, attentive watchers of the suspended moment.

Indigo Jane _is_ a marvel. Gansey’s sharply reminded of Cabeswater and its easy ways with each of the people he loves. Of easy days, simply meandering along the path it sets for them. That timeless, timeless place of theirs. Blue’s lilies… The impossibly coloured fish… The unknowable changing seasons… Adam’s eyes, Adam’s hands. Indie’s certainly the eyes and hands of _something_ , and the forest speaks to her in ways he’s never seen anything speak to her before.

“Do you think this is his?” Indie breathes, worried about breaking the spell. Ronan. It seems so improbable, impossible even, that Ronan Lynch, withering away in a hospital bed an hour and a half away, would dream something up at such a distance.

Or maybe he _sent_ it to them.

He has no time to follow his daughter’s train of thought, as her phone buzzes to life beside him on the checkered blanket. Sargent’s face blinks up at him, plaintive with news. Gansey’s heart twists.

Indie answers.

The spell shatters.

 

**4pm**

Indie doesn’t have the time to react to the worst of Ronan’s injuries. Her father never exaggerated. Ronan is a mess, even a month down the line. Any other day, she might’ve crumpled into a head-swimming faint. But Sargent’s panic-stricken warning lights a fire under her and keeps her upright. Nothing suggests Ronan Lynch’s remaining vitality save for a steady electric stream slid across a heart rate monitor at his bedside. It reads like a lie detector: unwavering in its even, jagged strokes while he’s unconscious. God only knows what it may unleash in a newly wakened state.

Indigo Jane Sargent is up for the challenge…

“Are you going to be okay?” Gansey asks her, as they stand outside his room, looking in. He tried to keep her at ease through the remaining two hour drive into D.C. It was all talk of Sam and her many solo adventures, with or without her person of choice. Handing Indie the wheel for the last half-hour leg toward the hospital. Giving her gentle pointers on how to be more harmonious with the car. Blasting her favourite tunes out the window into traffic. Letting her curl up and sleep off the excitement and anticipation of the drive.

Much as Indie _adores_ cars (and she truly does), she never was quite at ease inside of one like Violet always has been. Violet’s whole life spans out in moments inside her father’s BMW. Her infancy was charted by spontaneous drives to sooth her hearty little lungs quiet, a whooshing womb from which she never emerged. She could sleep in any moving vehicle, be it BMW, Camaro, or caravan. Indigo Jane, in stark comparison, has always been frenetic in the backseat of any car. To her, the steel beast is another animal to tame. She likes the thought of stroking the sleek hood, curling fingers around a steering wheel, listening to the engine purr. She likes approaching sickly, broken down tin cans, and finding out how to fix it. In short, she’s a automobile whisperer, without a single sense of how to exist calmly within its working parts. Indie’s not a girl accepting of closed-in spaces. Like her mother, she’s meant to run free. A car’s entrapments between its four doors, click-locked shut tight does not offer her the release she needs.            

She’s a fitful car sleeper, even when boredom strikes.

Fortunately enough, now she’s free to work the magic innate within her. Let her juices flow. Tonight, it’s all for Ronan. _Finally_ all for Ronan. She’s in her element and ready to go. The magic thrums beneath her fingertips, pounds, sequestered within her ribcage. This is precisely where she’s meant to be.

She steps toward the open doorway, leading into Ronan’s room, standing tall, (as tall as a five foot cupid can be), hands clenched into fists at her sides. Violet’s war stance flickers through her mind and she embodies it now, head held high and shoulders thrown back. A bright little light pulsates, sure and determined, dipped into the breast-pocket of her denim overalls. Her heart syncs with every gleaming pulse, two matching sets of magic mingling into one unstoppable force. She knows what she needs to do.

“I’m ready.” Indigo Sargent takes a fortifying breath, and dives in.


	42. Wake Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan and Violet's fates may not be quite so intertwined after all. One of them may not make it out alive...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, this is the last chapter of Moonage Daydream, but no, it is not the end of the story. I've moved subsequent chapters over to its sequel, Moonage Darkened, simply because the new arc sets a very different tone that kinda features throughout the remainder of the plot. It just made sense to me to introduce it in sequel. 
> 
> If cliffhanger endings make you squirm, pop on over to Moonage Darkened to find out what happens next! And if this is the end of the road for you, thank you so much for joining me on this journey. It's been a blast!

I.

Love can bring one back from the brink. But sometimes, the brink is too far gone, whisking past street signs and missing crucial turns down the path to redemption. Sometimes love is not enough.

Indie feels it the moment she steps up to Ronan’s bedside. If Violet’s broken, her father is more so, his face an unrecognizable etching, a botchery sliced together with a scoring knife. His burns bleed through his flesh, leaving deep indents in his cheeks, right down to his jaw, and further, crawling in a gradual creep across his neck. He breathes through a tube, an obstruction down his throat, once choked and gagged upon insertion. The mask that holds it there covers his mouth and nose. And like his daughter, he sleeps, still, still as death incarnate and it’s no wonder Gansey fears the worst for him. He’s welted and wilting and…

Indie’s going to bring him back. They have no other option.

She takes a new breath and Ronan’s hand. It takes some contorting to reach for his other, pressed to his side at an awkward angle for Indie’s tiny little body. But she reaches for it, twisting palm up. And into the center of Ronan’s palm, she nudges her new friend, right into the heart lines of his hand. The fairy’s glow brightens at the contact and she turns on the spot for a suspended moment, like a dog or cat, getting comfortable, before she plunks down on her knees and looks up at Indie, plaintive. Silently asking for their next move.

“We heard you,” Indie whispers, gaze shifted to Ronan’s face. She squeezes his hand, mindful of his free hand, knuckles face down on the bedspread as the little sprite gazes up with a child’s gaze Indie hasn’t seen in ten years. If this is a dream thing (and indeed, Indie suspects it is), Ronan’s perfected the memory of Violet’s face and mannerisms, at six years old, kept her in stasis, a perfect little gift in amber. She’s surprised the little miniature of her friend hasn’t raced out to give Ronan’s fatherly thumb a hearty squeeze at their reunion. How long has she been let loose on the world now? How long did Ronan wait for her to be found? Little hints whisper to her, and she knows, somehow, it was not long after the crash. She knows a cry for help when she sees one, even if Ronan Lynch remains unconscious and unaware. “You’re not ready to give up. And neither are we.”

Indie’s got a cache of magic caught in her net at all times. Her collection is wide ranging and she casts out wide now, into unknown waters deep. She takes her dive and swims, a steady parting of kicking arms and legs, until feet no longer reach rocks or sand. Where she goes is beyond the slip of deep sea ledge, on, into her own Mariana’s Trench: down down down, into the recesses of the ocean, where no human being has ever ventured. It’s dark, unlit but for monstrous beasts, natural lantern’s glow hung low over skeletal brows and paired with snapping teeth. Where one beast lurks, a larger one grows near. Indie doesn’t expect this to be easy.

Ronan’s demons keep him at bay. This is abundantly clear. It’s what keeps him here, in this bed, and Violet, back in Henrietta and Cabeswater, in hers. He knows his sins and his subconscious wars against it. So much so, it sent a lifeline, in the form of trees and benign creatures to guide him home. To remind him of who he used to be.

Indie knows the best of Ronan. All she’s ever known is this gentle, kind man, willing to fight to the ends of the Earth for this hodge podge of a family he’s created for himself. She knows the man who helped bring her and Violet and her brother up, almost single handedly while the other adults in their kin turned their attentions to work. She knows a man who once dreamt up a litter of kittens, who was later found with three young children, splayed on the kitchen floor, covered in tiny flailing balls of squealing fluff each. She may have seen Ronan at his very worst, but she also knows him at his best. And this is the Ronan she teases out tonight.

She listens to her heartbeat, knowing it’s steady and sure, just like the rest of her. Her tiny glowing companion has taken aflutter and lands, full of grace, on Ronan’s chest. They two are tinkers in heart magic and they will set everything to rights. Her breath evens. She closes her eyes. All that’s there is Ronan, and the love she has for him. The appreciation she has for everything he’s done for her. Everything he has _yet_ to do for her. She’s not that kind of psychic, but she knows, intrinsically, that there is more in store for him and their family. This inherent gut feeling within leads her, as it always has.

Indie doesn’t just need a feeling. She needs to encompass Ronan’s very _being_. Slip under his skin. Get to know him all over again, from top to bottom, strip him of every bad vibe, every nightmare that has held him all these years. This wallpaper must come down, to be replaced by a lick of bright, airy, fresh paint. A gentle yellow, perhaps.

Indie always was fond of sunshine.

She’s got it. Right in her grasp. A breath of certainty releases from her, slow and calm from between nostrils. Her shoulders roll and square off, ready to play. Ronan’s so entrenched in her every shred of body language, Gansey’s startled from behind glass as he watches her at it, thumb pressed anxiously against his teeth. At what point must he intervene?

“Ronan Lynch.” Indie’s eyes open wide and she’s his commander, setting demands as steady as a ship’s captain. The fairy glows, curled up, protective around his heart. Indie’s hand squeezes Ronan’s again in time with the pulse. Their magic flares. Ronan’s voice echoes hollow, but persistent in her mind.

“Wake up.”

 

II.

 

Blue trudges up the stairs from the shop to find Sargent screaming. It’s not a new call for help, but it’s a frightening, blood curdling sound nonetheless, slithering down the halls from his latest chamber of doom. Her son’s been caught in a feedback loop of unsettling silence and shrieking bloody murder, depending on his lucidity on any given day. She thought she’d finally made a breakthrough with him, pragmatically nudging him back out of his carefully constructed protective shell.

Yet this, this is something else. Something bigger, something blacker. Something _worse_. She can feel it in her gut, tearing at her every organ, dread sucking up every last drop of optimism into a whirling black hole forming in her heart. Bottomless. Irretrievable.

It takes her a moment to realize he’s not just screaming nonsensically. No. This time, he’s screaming _her_ name, a shrill, desperate plea for his mother, interlaced with garbled exclamatives of _oh my god_ and _no_ and uncontrollable sobbing. He’s _afraid_.

The sight she faces as she rushes into her children’s bedroom is no different than the one she’s seen time and time again back in Cabeswater for the past month now. Her heart can hardly stand seeing him like this anymore. Each heart in this house has shattered over the tragedy befalling their blended family. But seeing Sargent, holding Violet to him, waiting for a sign, a miracle, _something_ to drag them out of this hell, is the worst of it all. As she finds them now, hardly two pieces of a whole, she thinks maybe they’ve finally reached their end. The relief is hardly a satisfying one.

Violet’s splayed, rag doll, across his lap, her sharp edges somehow made more severe by the shadows creeping in as the evening progresses. She’s stiller than anyone’s ever seen her. Sargent’s hunched over her, his hands in her hair, cupping her cheeks, pressing down into her shoulders and shaking her, utterly senseless with grief.

“Shit,” Blue swears under her breath, no other words quite worthy enough to encompass the situation. Nothing quite so apt. She settles on the edge of the bed, close enough to touch him, but she steels herself instead, uncertain of his unpredictable penchant for mindless violence upon anyone who bothers him and his love.

He sniffles once, ugly and full of snot and tears. His gaze doesn’t leave Violet for a second, but he addresses his mother nonetheless. “She won’t wake up,” he murmurs, hysteria settling in. “Mom, _she won’t wake up_! _Why won’t she wake up_?” He gives Violet’s body another shake, earning him nothing but the lull of her head, snapping back languid against her neck, the loose curve from crown to shoulders bending just so over the edge of Sargent’s knee. Her hair falls in a spray of golden curls behind her, uncovering a face almost waxen in its stillness.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m _so_ sorry.” She gathers him up as best she can without jostling Violet’s delicate form in his lap, holding his head in her hands, the soft array of his hair between her fingers. He leans into her, momentarily releasing Violet to claw into the fabric of the shirt at her back. He just needs to be held…

She presses a kiss to the top of his head, her chin nudging the mother-blessed spot. Her hands card through his hair and he dissolves, a veritable puddle in her lap. Blue rearranges Violet tentatively, to keep Sargent’s retreating form from smothering her in its current position. They lie parallel, Sargent’s head in his mother’s lap, his choking tears soaking her skirts, Violet’s broken body laid down beside him. He blinks blearily back at her, in too deep a haze to comprehend much else. His fingers reach for her, an errant curl pulled taut around his forefinger. The soft gold ringlets resemble nothing belonging to a living creature, but that of a manufactured doll, unnatural in its beauty. She’s all ivory and porcelain, her once-rosy cheeks washed out. She looks no different than she has for the past month, yet her light is extinguished and Sargent feels every diminishing ounce in the ebb and fall. _Keenly_.

Adam’s due home any minute. Blue doesn’t know how to play this. Easy as it goes… All she can do right now is soothe her son through his grief and contemplate.

 

III.

 

Adam knows he’s returning home to a waking nightmare the minute he sets foot on the final step toward the first floor of Monmouth. A knot rises and thickens in his throat. He hesitates at the door, fingers on the knob, and considers staying his hand and retreating from whence he came, busying himself with something other than this family. When he comes home to his daughter next, what will he see?

Something within him breaks and he wrenches open the door. Rip it off. Get it out of the way. The knot in his throat will unwind with much needed closure. It _has_ to.

It’s unnaturally silent in the house, though he can sense he’s not alone as he crosses the threshold. A specter has visited them as twilight fell away to night and he feels the chill of it now. They’re each so full up with ghosts.

“They’re in the bedroom.” Noah’s mournful from behind him. He doesn’t show his face, but the timber of his voice traces the shape of him in the empty air. “Go to them.”

 The knot tightens. Adam goes.

He stands in the doorway, briefcase fallen from slackened fingers.

“Adam,” Blue breathes, quiet, unwilling to disturb Sargent, whom has finally stilled in his latest fit. For a split second, Adam’s taken back seventeen years to a sleep-lacking Blue Sargent, infant tucked up over her shoulder and a finger pressed to her lips; she’s finally got her son to settle. In her lap, Sargent’s empty, his body unsettlingly mechanical in its movements, as if on autopilot. His fingers reach out to trace the cupid’s bow of Violet’s mouth; a mouth he’d kissed countless times. A mouth he’d intended to kiss countless times more.

Adam’s heart drops out of the soles of his shoes.

Violet.

Jesus Christ… _Violet_.

“No.” His head shakes, vehement, unwilling to believe. Hands quiver; knees threaten to give out from under him.

“Adam…” Blue warns, her glance stern, flicked from one mourner to another. She can hardly handle the pair of them on her own. “Adam, _don’t_ …”

“V-Vi… Violet?” Her name chokes out of him around the knot in his throat. It sounds strange on his tongue, held heavy with every syllabic construction. He makes it to the bed and no further. He crumples, knuckles fisting around the bedspread. Part of him hopes this scene… this scene here is a lie. It’s a mirage, ready to clear the minute he touches her. That everything will fall away and she’ll wake up under his command. Violet never really did obey parental authority.

He finds strength in himself to push up, and reach out to roll her over, just the once, away from Sargent’s sluggish roaming fingers, searching for some piece of her to revive. She’s sleeping. _Just_ sleeping. He tells himself this once and once more and once again. Her fair lashes remain stagnant against the lip of her cheekbones. Nothing’s changed. Not since this morning… _Nothing_. It was vain of him to hope they could find her a cure.

The colour’s already washing out of her, like dye bleeding out of a rain-drenched summer dress’ damp white fabric. She’s a colour herself; always has been. Like Blue before her, like Indie after her. Yet she’s drained, violet no longer, but faded to a dull grey. Where is that fierce fighter of his? Where has she gone? And when will she return home?

Did she fight this? Did she fight hard enough? Violet’s never faced a battle she’s not won, save the one. They can’t risk another. Not now. “Get- get her to Cabeswater,” he forces out, ringing the tears from his eyes with childish knuckles. “We need to get her to Cabeswater right now.”

“Adam,” Blue repeats, any words she could say to fix this lost. She knows there’s no reasoning with him. Not about this.

“No!” The fire’s lit from under him again. That spark of a mission he must see through. Adam Lynch never stands down from a challenge. Not even this one. _Especially_ not this one. “We made the mistake of listening to Sargent in bringing her here. And yes, it _was_ a mistake. We should never have brought her home. Now we’ll _fix it_.”

“ _Adam_.” Blue doesn’t like the steel in his voice, nor does she like the implication that this is her teenage _son_ ’s fault. Sargent’s glassy-eyed in her lap, unresponsive to any further outside influences. He sniffles, the cutting words washing right over him, unnoticed. “We’re doing everything we _can_!” The proclamation comes out more shrilly than she intended. They’re all so flustered with this new development. They’ve been thrown through a loop all day. She can’t let this rattle her now.

“You and Sargent can wallow all you want right here, but I’m taking my daughter to Cabeswater.” He’s already moving to shift Violet’s prone form into his arms. Every limb falls limp in his grip, one arm dangling from out of his hold. She’s both lighter and heavier all at once; emptied of everything that made her whole, and filled up with a father’s every nightmare.

He’s taking her back to Cabeswater, precisely where she belongs.

 

IV.

           

Aurora Lynch and her kingdom await their fallen princess with open arms and an untouched clearing, carved out just for her. There’s always been a mossy bed made up just for the forest’s granddaughter. This one is no exception. Adam lays her down upon it now for what could very well be the last time. He’s not going to let that be an option. He won’t allow it.

 _Fix her_ , he begs. _Please, god._ _Just… fix her._

But Cabeswater can do nothing else for her. Adam sucks in a breath and watches, rapt as a trickling of vines slither across her body. The creeper embraces her, like a mother’s caress, and flowers for her, blooming with every bud of purple imaginable. Violets for their violet. The magical forest keeps her face untouched, leaving her beauty the legacy she never wanted to keep.

Violet Aurora Lynch is immortal among these trees, just not tonight, on this, her final night.

The flowers hold her, crisscrossed around her wrists, her ankles, her slender waist… They snake around the long column of her throat, circling her breasts and speckling her hair. The trees bend over her, far up above, their bows shaking with the sound of a gentle rain, as petals drift down, catching on her eyelids, sliding down her cheeks, pressing to her lips like a kiss.

Each petal that does not find her body transforms on their way down, like snowflakes to raindrops in warm conditions. They perform a delicate magic trick, turning to dew as they meet the mossy ground beneath her. And from each miniscule droplet forms a gradual lattice construction. It fans out, bending, shaping the intricate detailing of a spider’s web in morning dew. A careful encasement to preserve Cabeswater’s fiercest warrior and greatest creation.

A coffin in the forest’s midst. A confirmed death.

The heavy tread of Sargent’s stubborn boy feet and Blue’s lighter footfall echo behind him, joining him in a semi-circle around Violet’s body, ensconced in the forest’s fabrications, as if they’ve gathered for a true funeral. Preoccupied with Cabeswater’s confirmations of his greatest fear, Adam does not acknowledge their presence, heads bent in mournful respect for the dead, until the jingle of a phone rings out around the forest, breaking the eerie silence.

It’s Gansey.

Blue hesitates, unsure whether this is the best time. How can she tell him they’ve lost Violet? If more bad news is coming for them and they’ve lost Ronan too… She answers nonetheless, setting the call to speaker for the collective at large beneath shaking hands. There’s no keeping Gansey in the dark about this. _Never_ this.

“Jane!” Relief washes right through Gansey’s greeting, his Washington triumphs such a stark contrast from the black mood back in Henrietta. He lets out a whoop of delight incongruent with their situation. Blue blinks, releasing a sharp breath. He comes bearing shockingly good news in amongst their worst waking day. The pep in his voice speaks for every ounce of pride he feels for his daughter for everything she’s done. He _knew_ they could count on her. “There’s someone here who wants to talk to you!”

But the raw excitement and hope in his voice comes too late and does not assuage their fears. Not when Violet’s already unmoving on a funeral pyre. Adam’s frozen, half-kneeling over his daughter’s glistening ice-rimed casket, waiting. The worst has already come to pass…

There’s a sound of something shifting on the other line, like the phone’s being passed between hands. Then a new voice cuts in. One they haven’t heard in quite some time.

“Maggot.”

Ronan’s gruff voice is hoarse with disuse, but there, awake, and wry with life. More than can be said for Violet. They thought he’d be the key. They thought bringing him back would save her. They never thought father and daughter’s fates would not, could never _be_ intertwined. But it’s _something_ and Blue holds on tight to the glimmer of hope cutting through the fog of their latest loss.

Adam’s already swirling the drain, too far gone in his grief to be relieved to hear the voice of the tormentor who brought them to this tragedy in the first place. He pushes himself up off his knees and trudges straight to Blue, knocking the phone from her hands. She grapples for it, but Adam’s got it wrenched into his grasp now, and held, up close to his mouth.

“Why?” he begs of his freshly awakened husband on the other line. He doesn’t deserve to be here. Not after what he’s done. Not when they predicted this from day one, and still find themselves here despite the plethora of warnings to prevent their little prophecy from coming to pass. “Why would you _do_ this? Why would you do this to our daughter? _Your own daughter_? Did she mean _nothing_ to you? After all these years? You _loved_ her. She _trusted_ you. And this is how you repay her? Tell me why the fuck- why the _fuck_ you’d let her die.”

Ronan’s stunned silence rings out around them, louder than any of Adam’s angry, grief-filled accusations. He has nothing to speak for, nor can he process his words, newly resurfaced in the world as he is. Adam wasn’t asking for words anyway.

Gansey’s voice cuts back in, disbelieving at the heavy truth. “Now Adam, there must be some mistake. She can’t be… she wouldn’t…” He falters, unable to carry on his watered-down insistence to the contrary. They’d left her in one piece. Comatose, and unresponsive, but in one piece nonetheless. Imagining her miles away and _gone_ is just… impossible.

“She’s dead, Gansey!” Adam screams out into the winds, Cabeswater’s mood shifting along with him. Foliage creeps up around Violet’s coffin, the forest’s way of redoubling its efforts to keep her safe.

Too little too late.

“She’s _dead_! Cabeswater’s all but buried her already!” So long as Ronan exists over the phone, he’s immaterial. Adam can believe he doesn’t exist. He’s not real, another fabrication Cabeswater tugs away at in its imperfections. And he can scream, laying down every blame he’s wanted to let loose for the past few months. This is a curse they can no longer bear. Not when it cost her their sleeping beauty. A spindle’s tricks watched her fall, and witch, nor fairy couldn’t bring her back. Not even true love’s kiss.

So he screams. And screams and screams, right into the night, phone forgotten in hand, and left to slip away, onto the forest’s floor.

“This is not the end!” he insists, pointing a matter of fact finger aggressively toward the ground. He shaking; he wants to kick something, but Cabeswater offers nothing solid save for the casket holding his daughter’s corpse. “This is _not_ how it goes! You can’t _bury_ her! You have _no right_ to bury her! Not after everything I’ve done for you! I am your hands! I am your _eyes_! She’s my daughter and I beg, no I _demand_ you take it back! Take back every single thing he did to her! Take _everything_ back!”

There’s one thing they all can count on when it comes to Cabeswater:

It hears intention. And it hears it now.

A crack splits straight through the atmosphere, a sonic boom resonating beyond even Sargent’s magical capacities. The ley lines crackle with energy overspent on a desperate penny-thrown wish. They each feel it in their bones, electricity zinging through their teeth. Something’s shifting, changing around them and it’s not long until the world fades to black.

Their shattering, crumbling lives together, pulled apart at the seams, jumbled up and recreated in a shambled patchwork quilt, made from their ugliest parts.

Their gasping world, unmade.

 

V.

 

Morning light falls upon a lone sleeper, the sun a bleary change to the bounding darkness of late.

A shift. A moan. A sigh.

Lids squint against the harsh brightness cutting through their lengthy slumber. They squeeze shut tight, once twice, before shooting open.

A pair of startled eyes greet the new day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psst... pop on over to Moonage Darkened for more!!!! ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Please drop me a comment and/or kudos below. Sargent Gansey and the less overly dramatic ladies need applause to live! ;)
> 
> If you're on tumblr and love Moonage, consider joining the Moonage Network, where a bunch of the readers come together to chat and where I occasionally drop extra content. Come talk to me [ @angrymagicgirlmarsette](http://angrymagicgirlmarsette.tumblr.com/) for info! :D

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Opposite Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6204031) by [Bookishgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookishgirl/pseuds/Bookishgirl)




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